heme for his assassination during one of
his visits to Paris was discovered by Brantome, who warned his future
craftsfellow of it.

[Sidenote: Agrippa d'Aubigne.]

Agrippa d'Aubigne belongs to this section of the subject by his _Vie a
ses Enfants_, often called his memoirs, by his _Histoire Universelle_,
and by a great number of letters. The same qualities which distinguish
D'Aubigne in verse are recognisable in his prose, his passionate and
insubordinate temper, the keenness of his satire, the somewhat turbid
grandeur of his style and images, the vigour and picturesqueness of
occasional traits. The _Histoire Universelle_ and the _Vie a ses
Enfants_ were both works written in old age, but there is hardly any
sign of failing power in them. The _Vie_ in particular contains many
passages, such as the vision of his mother and the passionate charge
which his father laid upon him at the sight of the victims of the
Amboise conspiracy, which rank very high among the prose of the century.
The _Histoire Universelle_, like the book which Raleigh wrote almost at
the same time, and under not dissimilar circumstances, is necessarily in
great part a compilation, but has many passages worthy of its author at
his best.

[Sidenote: Marguerite de Valois.]

The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois contain what is perhaps the
best-known and oftenest quoted passage of any memoirs of the time, that
in which the Princess describes the night of St. Bartholomew. There are
not many such stirring passages in them, but throughout Marguerite gives
evidence of the remarkable talent which distinguished the Valois. Her
evident object is to justify herself, and this makes the book somewhat
artificial. It is dedicated to Brantome, but shows in its manner rather
the influence of Ronsard and the Pleiade by the classical correctness of
the style, the absence of archaisms, and the precision and form of the
sentences. According to the principles of the school, the vocabulary is
simple and vernacular enough, for the Pleiade regarded ornate
classicisms of language as proper to poetry.

In a rank not much below those mentioned must be placed the so-called
_Memoires de Vieilleville_, the _Chronologies_ of Palma-Cayet, the
_Registres-Journaux_ of Pierre de l'Estoile, the Letters of
Duplessis-Mornay, Cardinal d'Ossat, and Henri IV. himself, and the
_Negotiations_ of the President Jeannin.

[Sidenote: Vieilleville.]

The Marechal de Vieilleville was one of the f