spring of 1589. The old Politique
party now rallied to the King; the Huguenots were stanch for their old
leader; things looked less dark for them since the destruction of the
Spanish Armada in the previous summer. The Swiss, aroused by the threats
of the Duke of Savoy at Geneva, joined the Germans, who once more entered
northeastern France; the leaguers were unable to make head either against
them or against the armies of the two Kings; they fell back on Paris, and
the allies hemmed them in. The defence of the capital was but languid;
the populace missed their idol, the Duc de Guise, and the moderate party,
never extinguished, recovered strength. All looked as if the royalists
would soon reduce the last stronghold of the League, when Henri III. was
suddenly slain by the dagger of a fanatical half-wined priest.

The King had only time to commend Henri of Navarre to his courtiers as
his heir, and to exhort him to become a Catholic, before he closed his
eyes, and ended the long roll of his vices and crimes. And thus in crime
and shame the House of Valois went down. For a few years, the throne
remained practically vacant: the heroism of Henri of Navarre, the loss of
strength in the Catholic powers, the want of a vigorous head to the
League,--these things all sustained the Bourbon in his arduous struggle;
the middle party grew in strength daily, and when once Henri had allowed
himself to be converted, he became the national sovereign, the national
favourite, and the high Catholics fell to the fatal position of an
unpatriotic faction depending on the arm of the foreigner.

4. The civil wars were not over, for the heat of party raged as yet
unslaked; the Politiques could not all at once adopt a Huguenot King, the
League party had pledged itself to resist the heretic, and Henri at first
had little more than the Huguenots at his back. There were also
formidable claimants for the throne. Charles II. Duc de Lorraine, who
had married Claude, younger daughter of Henri IL, and who was therefore
brother-in-law to Henri III., set up a vague claim; the King of Spain,
Philip II., thought that the Salic law had prevailed long enough in
France, and that his own wife, the elder daughter of Henri III. had the
best claim to the throne; the Guises, though their head was gone, still
hoping for the crown, proclaimed their sham-king, the Cardinal de
Bourbon, as Charles X., and intrigued behind the shadow of his name. The
Duc de Mayenne, their pre