ed at Contras, was now compelled to
participate in a more fatal series of triumphs. For alas, the victim had
tied himself to the apron-string of "Madam League," and was paraded by
her, in triumph, before the eyes of his own subjects and of the world.
The passage of the Loire by the auxiliaries was resisted; a series of
petty victories was gained by Guise, and, at last, after it was obvious
that the leaders of the legions had been corrupted with Spanish ducats,
Henry allowed them to depart, rather than give the Balafre opportunity
for still farther successes.

Then came the triumph in Paris--hosannahs in the churches, huzzas in the
public places--not for the King, but for Guise. Paris, more madly in love
with her champion than ever, prostrated herself at his feet. For him
paeans as to a deliverer. Without him the ark would have fallen into the
hands of the Philistines. For the Valois, shouts of scorn from the
populace, thunders from the pulpit, anathemas from monk and priest,
elaborate invectives from all the pedants of the Sorbonne, distant
mutterings of excommunication from Rome--not the toothless beldame of
modern days, but the avenging divinity of priest-rid monarchs. Such were
the results of the edicts of June. Spain and the Pope had trampled upon
France, and the populace in her capital clapped their hands and jumped
for joy. "Miserable country miserable King," sighed an illustrious
patriot, "whom his own countrymen wish rather to survive, than to die to
defend him! Let the name of Huguenot and of Papist be never heard of
more. Let us think only of the counter-league. Is France to be saved by
opening all its gates to Spain? Is France to be turned out of France, to
make a lodging for the Lorrainer and the Spaniard?" Pregnant questions,
which could not yet be answered, for the end was not yet. France was to
become still more and more a wilderness. And well did that same brave and
thoughtful lover, of his: country declare, that he who should suddenly
awake from a sleep of twenty-five years, and revisit that once beautiful
land, would deem himself transplanted to a barbarous island of
cannibals.--[Duplessis Mornay, 'Mem.' iv. 1-34.]

It had now become quite obvious that the game of Leicester was played
out. His career--as it has now been fully exhibited--could have but one
termination. He had made himself thoroughly odious to the nation whom he
came to govern. He had lost for ever the authority once spontaneously
besto