ee
exercise of their religion everywhere, "as much as they would have
acquired by gaining two battles against the court of France." To the
zealous Catholics this peace seemed like a betrayal of their cause, and
the _Sainte Ligue_, for the maintenance of the privileges of the Church
and the king, was organized throughout the country under the auspices of
Henri de Guise, who placed himself at the head of the movement.

Henri III, who had fled from his throne of Poland to take that of
France as soon as he heard of the death of his brother, had not even the
few good qualities of the latter. Depraved, prodigal, effeminate,
capable only of the most puerile occupations, he excited the indignation
of the Parisians by his dissolute manners, by his travesty of feminine
apparel, his fine collars, his necklaces of pearls, his pourpoint opened
to show his throat. D'Aubigne declared that he could not decide whether
he saw "a woman-king or a man-queen." In his solemn entry into his
capital he scandalized the grave citizens by his appearance, "having
around him a great quantity of parakeets, monkeys, and little dogs." His
courtiers and favorites naturally followed his example, and shared the
popular disfavor; in 1576, the Parisians began to designate them as
_mignons du roi_. Their worthy master, whenever it arrived to one of
them to be killed in duel or ambuscade, contented himself with giving
him a fine tomb and a marble statue in the church of Saint-Paul, hence
called "the seraglio of the mignons," so that, says De Thou, "the usual
threat against one of these favorites was: 'I will have him carved in
marble like the others.'"

[Illustration: STAIRCASE IN THE RESIDENCE OF THE VICOMTESSE ALIX DE
JANZE, RUE MARIGNAN. ABOUT TO BE PRESENTED, WITH ITS COLLECTION, TO THE
CITY.]

To thwart the schemes of the Guises, who had begun to plot for the
succession to the throne, the king placed himself at the head of the
League, and created his Order of the Saint-Esprit in hopes of winning
partisans in both camps. His brother, now Duc d'Anjou, died in 1584,
after an unsuccessful expedition into the Low Countries; the Duc de
Guise concluded the treaty of Joinville with Philippe II of Spain, in
the same year, in which the high contracting parties agreed to extirpate
sects and heresies; to exclude from the throne of France heretic
princes, or those who promised public impunity to heretics, and to
assure the succession of the Valois to Charles, Card