of the
chamber in which the King of Navarre slept. "La Force," said D'Aubigne
to his bed-fellow, "our master is a regular miser, and the most
ungrateful mortal on the face of the earth." "What dost say, D'Aubigne?"
asked La Force, half asleep. "He says," repeated the King of Navarre,
who had heard all, that I am a regular miser, and the most ungrateful
mortal on the face of the earth." D'Aubigne, somewhat disconcerted, was
mum. "But," he adds, "when daylight appeared, this prince, who liked
neither rewarding nor punishing, did not for all that look any the more
black at me, or give me a quarter-crown more." Thirty years later, in
1617, after the collapse of the League and after the reign of Henry IV.,
D'Aubigne, wishing to describe the two leaders of the two great parties,
sums them up in these terms: "The Duke of Mayenne had such probity as is
human, a good nature and a liberality which made him most pleasant to
those about him; his was a judicious mind, which made good use of
experience, took the measure of everything by the card; a courage rather
steady than dashing; take him for all in all, he might be called an
excellent captain. King Henry IV. had all this, save the liberality; but
to make up for that item, his rank caused expectations as to the future
to blossom, which made the hardships of the present go down. He had,
amongst his points of superiority to the Duke of Mayenne, a marvellous
gift of promptitude and vivacity, and far beyond the average. We have
seen him, a thousand times in his life, make pat replies without hearing
the purport of a request, and forestall questions without committing
himself. The Duke of Mayenne was incommoded by his great bodily bulk,
which could not support the burden either of arms or of fatigue duty.
The other, having worked all his men to a stand-still, would send for
hounds and horses for to begin a hunt; and when his horses could go no
farther, he would run down the game afoot. The former communicated his
heaviness and his maladies to his army, undertaking no enterprise that he
could not support in person; the other communicated his own liveliness to
those about him, and his captains imitated him from complaisance and from
emulation."

[Illustration: GABRIELLE D'ESTREES--130]

These politicians, these Christians, these warriors had, in 1600, a grave
question to solve for Henry IV., and grave counsel to give him. He was
anxious to separate from his wife, Marguerite