peace with Philip, but that he had formally but mysteriously demanded the
hand of the Infanta in marriage. Such a catastrophe as this seemed to
the heated imaginations of the great body of Calvinists throughout
Europe, who had so faithfully supported the King of Navarre up to the
moment of his great apostasy, the most cruel and deadly treachery of all.
That the princess with the many suitors should come to reign over France
after all--not as the bride of her own father, not as the queen-consort
of Ernest the Habsburger or of Guise the Lorrainer, but as the lawful
wife of Henry the Huguenot--seemed almost too astounding for belief, even
amid the chances and changes of that astonishing epoch. Yet Duplessis
Mornay avowed that the project was entertained, and that he had it from
the very lips of the secret envoy who was to negotiate the marriage.
"La Varenne is on his way to Spain," wrote Duplessis to the Duke of
Bouillon, "in company with a gentleman of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who
brought the first overtures. He is to bring back the portrait of the
Infanta. 'Tis said that the marriage is to be on condition that the
Queen and the Netherlands are comprised in the peace, but you know that
this cannot be satisfactorily arranged for those two parties. All this
was once guess-work, but is now history."

That eminent diplomatist and soldier Mendoza had already on his return
from France given the King of Spain to understand that there were no
hopes of his obtaining the French crown either for himself or for his
daughter, that all the money lavished on the chiefs of the League was
thrown away, and that all their promises were idle wind. Mendoza in
consequence had fallen into contempt at court, but Philip, observing
apparently that there might have been something correct in his
statements, had recently recalled him, and, notwithstanding his blindness
and other infirmities, was disposed to make use of him in secret
negotiations. Mendoza had accordingly sent a confidential agent to Henry