treaty of January
17, 1601, he added to French territory La Bresse, Le Bugey, the district
of Gex, and the citadel of Bourg, which still held out after the capture
of the town. He was more and more dear to France, to which he had
restored peace at home as well as abroad, and industrial, commercial,
financial, monumental, and scientific prosperity, until lately unknown.
Sully covered the country with roads, bridges, canals, buildings, and
works of public utility. The moment the king, after the annulment of his
marriage with Marguerite de Valois, saw his new wife, Mary de' Medici, at
Lyons, she had disgusted him, and she disgusted him more every day by her
cantankerous and headstrong temper; but on the 27th of September, 1601,
she brought him a son, who was to be Louis XIII. Henry used to go for
distraction from his wife's temper to his favorite, Henriette
d'Entraigues, who knew how to please him at the same time that she was
haughty and exacting towards him. He set less store upon the peace of
his household than upon that of his kingdom; he had established his
favorite at the Louvre itself, close beside his wife; and, his new
marriage once contracted, he considered his domestic life settled, as
well as his political position.

He was mistaken on both points; he was not at the end of either his
political dangers or his amorous fancies. Since 1595, his principal
companion in arms, or rather his camp-favorite, Charles de Gontaut, Baron
de Biron, whom he had made admiral, duke, and marshal of France, was, all
the while continuing to serve him in the field, becoming day by day a
determined conspirator against him. He had begun by being a reckless
gamester; and in that way he lost fifteen hundred thousand crowns, about
six millions (of francs) of our day. "I don't know," said he, "whether I
shall die on the scaffold or not; but I will never come to the
poorhouse." He added, "When peace is concluded, the king's love-affairs,
the scarcity of his largesses, and the discontent of many will lead to
plenty of splits, more than are necessary to embroil the most peaceful
kingdoms in the world. And, should that fail, we shall find in religion
more than we want to put the most lukewarm Huguenots in a passion and the
most penitent Leaguers in a fury." Henry IV. regarded Biron with tender
affection. I never loved anybody as I loved him," he used to say;
"I would have trusted my son and my kingdom to him. He has done me good
se