to their finances and so arranging their affairs that on the resumption
of hostilities, if come they must, their friends might be encouraged to
help them, by the exhibition of thorough vigour on their part.

France then, although utterly indisposed for war at that moment, was
thoroughly to be relied on as a friend and in case of need an ally, so
long as it was governed by its present policy. There was but one king
left in Europe since the death of Elizabeth of England.

But Henry was now on the abhorred threshold of old age which he
obstinately refused to cross.

There is something almost pathetic, in spite of the censure which much of
his private life at this period provokes, in the isolation which now
seemed his lot.

Deceived and hated by his wife and his mistresses, who were conspiring
with each other and with his ministers, not only against his policy but
against his life; with a vile Italian adventurer, dishonouring his
household, entirely dominating the queen, counteracting the royal
measures, secretly corresponding, by assumed authority, with Spain, in
direct violation of the King's instructions to his ambassadors, and
gorging himself with wealth and offices at the expense of everything
respectable in France; surrounded by a pack of malignant and greedy
nobles, who begrudged him his fame, his authority, his independence;
without a home, and almost without a friend, the Most Christian King in
these latter days led hardly as merry a life as when fighting years long
for his crown, at the head of his Gascon chivalry, the beloved chieftain
of Huguenots.