helping them. For Castres and other places in your department, ask what
you will, and you shall obtain it. For your own self, anything you
please (carte blanche) is offered you. . . . If you will believe me,
you will get out of this miserable business with glory, with the good
graces of the king, and with what you desire for your own fortunes, which
I am anxious to promote so as to be a support to mine."

Rohan replied, "I should be my own enemy if I did not desire my king's
good graces and your friendship. I will never refuse from my king
benefits and honors, or from you the offices of a kind connection. I do
well consider the peril in which I stand; but I beg you also to look at
yours. You are universally hated, because you alone possess what
everybody desires. Wars against them of the religion have often
commenced with great disadvantages for them; but the restlessness of the
French spirit, the discontent of those not in the government, and the
influence of foreigners have often retrieved them. If you manage to make
the king grant us peace, it will be to his great honor and advantage,
for, after having humbled the party, without having received any check,
and without any appearance of division within or assistance from without,
he will have shown that he is not set against the religion, but only
against the disobedience it covers, and he will break the neck of other
parties without having met with anything disagreeable. But, if you push
things to extremity, and the torrent of your successes does not
continue,--and you are on the eve of seeing it stopped in front of
Montauban,--every one will recover his as yet flurried senses, and will
give you a difficult business to unravel. Bethink you that you have
gathered in the harvest of all that promises mingled with threats could
enable you to gain, and that the remnant is fighting for the religion in
which it believes. For my own part, I have made up my mind to the loss
of my property and my posts; if you have retarded the effects thereof on
account of our connection, I am obliged to you for it; but I am quite
prepared to suffer everything, since my mind is made up, having solemnly
promised it and my conscience so bidding me, to hear of nothing but a
general peace."

The reply was worthy of a great soul devoted to a great cause, a soul
that would not sacrifice to the hopes of fortune either friends or creed.
It was a mark of Duke Henry of Rohan's superior c