r voluntarily ignored, the
negotiations for the annulment of the marriage of Henry IV. and
Marguerite de Valois were proceeded with at Rome by consent of the two
parties. Clement VIII. had pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599,
and transmitted to Paris by Cardinal de Joyeuse the decree of annulment.
On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambassador, Brulart de
Sillery, powers to conclude at Florence his marriage with Mary
de' Medici, daughter of Francis I. de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany,
and Joan, Archduchess of Austria and niece of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I.
de' Medici, who had often rendered Henry IV. pecuniary services dearly
paid for. As early as the year 1592 there had been something said about
this project of alliance; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of
October, 1600, at Florence with lavish magnificence. Mary embarked at
Leghorn on the 17th with a fleet of seventeen galleys; that of which she
was aboard, the _General,_ was all covered over with jewels, inside and
out; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3d of November, and at Lyons on the
2d of December, where she waited till the 9th for the king, who was
detained by the war with Savoy. He entered her chamber in the middle of
the night, booted and armed, and next day, in the cathedral-church of
St. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich in wealth than it was
destined to be in happiness. Mary de' Medici was beautiful in 1592, when
she had first been talked about, and her portrait at that time had
charmed the king; but in 1600 she was twenty-seven, tall, fat, with
round, staring eyes and a forbidding air, and ill dressed. She knew
hardly a word of French; and Henriette d'Entraigues, whom the king had
made Marquise do Verneuil, could not help exclaiming when she saw her,
"So that is the fat bankeress from Florence!"

Henry IV. seemed to have attained in his public and in his domestic life
the pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition. He was, at one and the
same time, Catholic king and the head of the Protestant polity in Europe,
accepted by the Catholics as the best, the only possible, king for them
in France. He was at peace with all Europe, except one petty prince, the
Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I., from whom he demanded back the
marquisate of Saluzzo, or a territorial compensation in France itself on
the French side of the Alps. After a short campaign, and thanks to
Rosny's ordnance, he obtained what he desired, and by a