was much better for Rome that the pernicious kingdom of France should be
dismembered and subdivided, assured his holiness that Rome should be
starved, occupied, annihilated, if such abominable schemes should be for
an instant favoured.

Clement took to his bed with sickness brought on by all this violence,
but had nothing for it but to meet Pisani and other agents of the same
cause with a peremptory denial, and send most, stringent messages to his
legate in Paris, who needed no prompting.

There had already been much issuing of bulls by the pope, and much
burning of bulls by the hangman, according to decrees of the parliament
of Chalons and other friendly tribunals, and burning of Chalons decrees
by Paris hangmen, and edicts in favour of Protestants at Nantz and other
places--measures the enactment, repeal, and reenactment of which were to
mark the ebb and flow of the great tide of human opinion on the most
important of subjects, and the traces of which were to be for a long time
visible on the shores of time.

Early in 1593 Mayenne, yielding to the pressure of the Spanish party,
reluctantly consented to assemble the States-General of France, in order
that a king might be chosen. The duke, who came to be thoroughly known
to Alexander Farnese before the death of that subtle Italian, relied on
his capacity to outwit all the other champions of the League and agents
of Philip now that the master-spirit had been removed. As firmly opposed
as ever to the election of any other candidate but himself, or possibly
his son, according to a secret proposition which he had lately made to
the pope, he felt himself obliged to confront the army of Spanish
diplomatists, Roman prelates, and learned doctors, by whom it was
proposed to exclude the Prince of Bearne from his pretended rights. But