this atrocious decree. He clearly foresaw that it must
arouse France and all Europe to war, and that a new Iliad of woes was
to commence. Leaning his chin upon his hand, he was for a long time
lost in profound reverie as he pondered the awful theme. It is said
that his anguish was so intense, that when he removed his hand his
beard and mustache on that side were turned entirely gray.

But Henry rose with the emergence, and met the crisis with a degree of
energy and magnanimity which elicited, in those barbarous times, the
admiration even of his enemies. The Protestants heroically grasped
their arms and rallied together for mutual protection. War, with all
its horrors, was immediately resumed.

Affairs were in this condition when Francis, the Duke of Anjou, was
taken sick and suddenly died. This removed another obstruction from
the field, and tended to hasten the crisis. Henry III. was feeble,
exhausted, and childless. Worn out by shameless dissipation, it was
evident to all that he must soon sink into his grave. Who was to be
his successor? This was the question, above all others, which agitated
France and Europe. Henry of Navarre was, beyond all question,
legitimately entitled to the throne; but he was, in the estimation of
France, a _heretic_. The League consequently, in view of the impending
peril of having a Protestant king, redoubled its energies to exclude
him, and to enthrone their bigoted partisan, Henry of Guise. It was a
terrific struggle. The Protestants saw suspended upon its issue their
property, their religious liberty, their lives, their earthly all. The
Catholics were stimulated by all the energies of fanaticism in defense
of the Church. All Catholic Europe espoused the one side, all
Protestant Europe the other. One single word was enough to arrest all
these woes. That word was TOLERATION.

When Henry III. published his famous Edict of Nemours, commanding the
conversion, the expulsion, or the death of the Protestants, Henry of
Navarre issued another edict replying to the calumnies of the League,
and explaining his actions and his motives. Then adopting a step
characteristic of the chivalry of the times, he dispatched a challenge
to the Duke of Guise, defying him to single combat, or, if he objected
to that, to a combat of two with two, ten with ten, or a hundred with
a hundred.

"In this challenge," said Henry, "I call Heaven to witness that I am
not influenced by any spirit of bravado, but only by t