xhibited by
PIERRE DE BOURDEILLE, lord of BRANTOME, Catholic abbe, soldier and
courtier, observer of the great world, gossip of amorous secrets.
His _Vies des Hommes Illustres et des Grands Capitaines_, his _Vies
des Dames Illustres et des Dames Galantes_, and his _Memoires_
contained matter too dangerous, perhaps, for publication during his
lifetime, but the author cherished the thought of his posthumous
renown. Brantome, wholly indifferent to good and evil, had a vivid
interest in life; virtue and vice concerned him alike and equally,
if only they had vivacity, movement, colour; and although, as with
Monluc, it was a physical calamity that made him turn to authorship,
he wrote with a naive art, an easy grace, and abundant spirit. To
correct and complete Brantome's narrative as it related to herself,
Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, first wife of Henri IV., prepared her
unfinished Memoirs, which opens the delightful series of
autobiographies and reminiscences of women. Her account of the night
of St. Bartholomew is justly celebrated; the whole record, indeed,
is full of interest; but there were passages of her life which it
was natural that she should pass over in silence; her sins of omission,
as Bayle has observed, are many.[4]

[Footnote 4: The _Memoires-Journeaux_ of Pierre de l'Estoile are a
great magazine of the gains of the writer's disinterested curiosity.
The _Lettres_ of D'Ossat and the _Negotiations_ of the President
Jeannin are of importance in the records of diplomacy.]

The controversies of the civil wars produced a militant literature,
in which the extreme parties contended with passion, while between
these a middle party, the aspirants to conciliation, pleaded for the
ways of prudence, and, if possible, of peace. FRANCOIS HOTMAN, the
effect of whose Latin _Franco-Gallia_, a political treatise
presenting the Huguenot demands, has been compared to that of
Rousseau's _Contrat Social_, launched his eloquent invective against
the Cardinal de Lorraine, in the _Epistre envoyee au Tigre de la
France_. Hubert Languet, the devoted friend of Philip Sidney, in his
_Vindiciae contra Tyrannos_, justified rebellion against princes who
violate by their commands the laws of God. D'Aubigne, in his
_Confession de Sancy_, attacked with characteristic ardour the
apostates and waverers of the time, above the rest that threefold
recanter of his faith, Harlay de Sancy. Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde,
in his _Tableau des Differands