their independence. Religious discord, amounting to civil war at
times, distracted France during the greater part of the same period,
profoundly affecting not only her internal but her external policy.
These were the days of St. Bartholomew, of the religious murder of
Henry IV., of the siege of La Rochelle, of constant intriguing between
Roman Catholic Spain and Roman Catholic Frenchmen. As the religious
motive, acting in a sphere to which it did not naturally belong, and
in which it had no rightful place, died away, the political
necessities and interests of States began to have juster weight; not
that they had been wholly lost sight of in the mean time, but the
religious animosities had either blinded the eyes, or fettered the
action, of statesmen. It was natural that in France, one of the
greatest sufferers from religious passions, owing to the number and
character of the Protestant minority, this reaction should first and
most markedly be seen. Placed between Spain and the German States,
among which Austria stood foremost without a rival, internal union and
checks upon the power of the House of Austria were necessities of
political existence. Happily, Providence raised up to her in close
succession two great rulers, Henry IV. and Richelieu,--men in whom
religion fell short of bigotry, and who, when forced to recognize it
in the sphere of politics, did so as masters and not as slaves. Under
them French statesmanship received a guidance, which Richelieu
formulated as a tradition, and which moved on the following general
lines,--(1) Internal union of the kingdom, appeasing or putting down
religious strife and centralizing authority in the king; (2)
Resistance to the power of the House of Austria, which actually and
necessarily carried with it alliance with Protestant German States and
with Holland; (3) Extension of the boundaries of France to the
eastward, at the expense mainly of Spain, which then possessed not
only the present Belgium, but other provinces long since incorporated