e alliance between France and
England seemed to have brought peace to Europe. It might have been
thought that there remained no more than secondary questions, such as the
possession of the marquisate of Saluzzo and the succession to the duchies
of C1eves and Juliers. But the instinct of peoples sees further than the
negotiations of diplomats. In the public estimation of Europe Henry IV.
was the representative of and the security for order, peace, national and
equitable policy, intelligent and practical ideas. So thought Sully
when, at the king's death, he went, equally alarmed and disconsolate, and
shut himself up in the arsenal; and the people had grounds for being of
Sully's opinion. Public confidence was concentrated upon the king's
personality. Spectators pardoned, almost with a smile, those tender
foibles of his which, nevertheless, his proximity to old age rendered
still more shocking. They were pleased at the clear-sighted and strict
attention he paid to the education of his son Louis, the dauphin, to
whose governess, Madame de Montglas, he wrote, "I am vexed with you for
not having sent me word that you have whipped my son, for I do wish and
command you to whip him every time he shows obstinacy in anything wrong,
knowing well by my own case that there is nothing in the world that does
more good than that." And to Mary de' Medici herself he added, "Of one
thing I do assure you, and that is, that, being of the temper I know you
to be of, and foreseeing that of your son, you stubborn, not to say
headstrong, madame, and he obstinate, you will verily have many a tussle
together."

[Illustration: Marie de Medicis----147]

Henry IV. saw as clearly into his wife's as into his son's character.
Persons who were best acquainted with the disposition of Mary de' Medici,
and were her most indulgent critics, said of her, in 1610, when she was
now thirty-seven years of age, "that she was courageous, haughty, firm,
discreet, vain, obstinate, vindictive and mistrustful, inclined to
idleness, caring but little about affairs, and fond of royalty for
nothing beyond its pomp and its honors." Henry had no liking for her or
confidence in her, and in private had frequent quarrels with her. He
had, nevertheless, had her coronation solemnized, and had provided by
anticipation for the necessities of government. On the king's death, and
at the imperious instance of the Duke of Epernon, who at once introduced
the queen, and said