pursued to the death by the greatest princes of Europe, you went on
conducting to the harbour of safety the little vessel against which so
many tempests were beating."

The States of the Dutch republic, where the affair of Henry's conversion
was as much a matter of domestic personal interest as it could be in
France--for religion up to that epoch was the true frontier between
nation and nation--debated the question most earnestly while it was yet
doubtful. It was proposed to send a formal deputation to the king, in
order to divert him, if possible, from the fatal step which he was about
to take. After ripe deliberation however, it was decided to leave the
matter "in the hands of God Almighty, and to pray Him earnestly to guide
the issue to His glory and the welfare of the Churches."

The Queen of England was, as might be supposed, beside herself with
indignation, and, in consequence of the great apostasy, and of her
chronic dissatisfaction with the manner in which her contingent of
troops had been handled in France, she determined to withdraw every
English soldier from the support of Henry's cause. The unfortunate
French ambassador in London was at his wits' ends. He vowed that he
could not sleep of nights, and that the gout and the cholic, to which
he was always a martyr, were nothing to the anguish which had now come
upon his soul and brain, such as he had never suffered since the bloody
day of St. Bartholomew.

"Ah, my God!" said he to Burghley, "is it possible that her just choler
has so suddenly passed over the great glory which she has acquired by so
many benefits and liberalities?" But he persuaded himself that her
majesty would after all not persist in her fell resolution. To do so,
he vowed, would only be boiling milk for the French papists, who would be