he Spanish policy.
Having started for his post, Gaetani was a long while on the road,
halting at Lyons, amongst other places, as if he were in no hurry to
enter upon his duties. At the close of 1589, Henry IV., king for the
last five months and already victorious at Arques, appointed as his
ambassador at Rome Francis de Luxembourg, Duke of Pinei, to try and enter
into official relations with the pope. On the 6th of January, 1590,
Sixtus V., at his reception of the cardinals, announced to them this
news. Badoero, ambassador of Venice at Rome, leaned forward and
whispered in his ear, "We must pray God to inspire the King of Navarre.
On the day when your Holiness embraces him, and then only, the affairs of
France will be adjusted. Humanly speaking, there is no other way of
bringing peace to that kingdom." The pope confined himself to replying
that God would do all for the best, and that, for his own part, he would
wait. On arriving at Rome, "the Duke of Luxembourg repaired to the
Vatican with two and twenty carriages occupied by French gentlemen; but,
at the palace, he found the door of the pope's apartments closed, the
sentries doubled, and the officers on duty under orders to intimate to
the French, the chief of the embassy excepted, that they must lay aside
their swords. At the door of the Holy Father's closet, the duke and
three gentlemen of his train were alone allowed to enter. The
indignation felt by the French was mingled with apprehensions of an
ambush. Luxembourg himself could not banish a feeling of vague terror;
great was his astonishment when, on his introduction to the pontiff, the
latter received him with demonstrations of affection, asked him news of
his journey, said he would have liked to give him quarters in the palace,
made him sit down,--a distinction reserved for the ambassadors of kings,
--and, lastly, listened patiently to the French envoy's long recital. In
fact, the receptions _intra et, extra muros_ bore very little resemblance
one to the other, but the difference between them corresponded pretty
faithfully with the position of Sixtus V., half engaged to the League by
Gaetani's commission and to Philip II. by the steps he had recently
taken, and already regretting that he was so far gone in the direction of
Spain." [_Sixtus V,_ by Baron Hiibner, late ambassador of Austria at
Paris and at Rome, t. ii. pp. 280-282.]

Unhappily Sixtus V. died on the 27th of August, 1590, before having
mo