of the Protestants on a satisfactory
basis by the Edict of Nantes, which was signed in April 1598, to
consolidate the privileges which had been previously granted to the
Calvinists. Full civil rights and full civil protection were granted
to all Protestants, and the King assigned a sum of money for the use of
Protestant schools and colleges.

Henry introduced the silk industry into France, and his famous
minister, Sully, did much to improve the condition of French
agriculture. By 1598 order had been restored in the kingdom, but
industry and commerce had been crippled by nearly forty years of civil
war. When France's first Bourbon King, Henry IV, was assassinated in
April 1610, he had only begun the great work of social and economical
reform which proved his genuine sense of public duty.

{115}

Chapter X

Under the Red Robe

Never was king more beloved by his subjects than Henry of Navarre, who
had so many of the frank and genial qualities which his nation valued.
There was mourning as for a father when the fanatic, Ravaillac, struck
him to the ground. It seemed strange that death should come in the
same guise to the first of the Bourbon line and the last of the Valois.

Henry had studied the welfare of the peasantry and the middle class,
striving to crush the power of the nobles whose hands were perpetually
raised one against the other. Therefore he intrusted affairs of State
to men of inferior rank, and determined that he would form in France a
nobility of the robe that should equal the old nobility of the sword.
The _paulette_ gave to all those who held the higher judicial functions
of the State the right to transmit their offices by will to their
descendants, or even to sell them as so much hereditary property.

In foreign affairs Henry had attempted to check the ambitious schemes
of the Spanish Hapsburg line and to restore the ancient prestige of
France in Europe, but he had to leave his country in a critical stage
and hope that a man would be found to carry on his great work.
Cardinal Richelieu was to have the supreme {116} honour of fulfilling
Henry IV's designs, with the energy of a nature that had otherwise very
little in common with that of the first King of the Bourbons.

Armand Jean Duplessis, born in 1585, was the youngest son of Francois
Duplessis, knight of Richelieu, who fought for Navarre upon the
battle-fields of Arques and Ivry. He was naturally destined for a
military career, a