the throne, was a Protestant, and therefore by the decree of the League
disqualified to succeed. Around his standard, the Huguenots rallied in
great numbers. With him were associated the princes of Conde, of royal
blood, and many other distinguished nobles. They contended for the double
purpose of securing the throne to its rightful heir and of emancipating and
establishing the Protestant faith.

But there was another class, acting indeed with one or the other of these
two great parties, nevertheless influenced by very different motives. It
was composed of moderate Catholics, who cared little for the political
schemes and civil power of the Roman Pontiff, who dreaded the encroachments
of the King of Spain, who were firmly patriotic and desired the
aggrandizement and glory of France.

The ultra-Catholic party was, for a long period, by far the most numerous
and the more powerful; but the Huguenots were sufficiently strong to keep
up the struggle with varying success for nearly forty years.

After the alliance of Henry of Navarre with Henry III. against the League,
the moderate Catholics and the Huguenots were united and fought together
under the royal standard until the close of the war in 1598.

Champlain was personally engaged in the war in Brittany for several years.
This province on the western coast of France, constituting a tongue of land
jutting out as it were into the sea, isolated and remote from the great
centres of the war, was among the last to surrender to the arms of Henry
IV. The Huguenots had made but little progress within its borders. The Duke
de Mercoeur [13] had been its governor for sixteen years, and had bent all
his energies to separate it from France, organize it into a distinct
kingdom, and transmit its sceptre to his own family.