; for that the only
effectual counter-poison to the pretended conversion of the Prince of
Bearne was the immediate election of a king.

Thus did Mayenne escape from the snare in which the Spaniards thought to
catch the man who, as they now knew, was changing every day, and was true
to nothing save his own interests.

And now the great day had come. The conversion of Henry to the Roman
faith, fixed long before for--the 23rd July,--1593, formally took place
at the time appointed.

From six in the morning till the stroke of noon did Henry listen to the
exhortations and expoundings of the learned prelates and doctors whom he
had convoked, the politic Archbishop of Bourges taking the lead in this
long-expected instruction. After six mortal hours had come to an end, the
king rose from his knees, somewhat wearied, but entirely instructed and
convinced. He thanked the bishops for having taught him that of which he
was before quite ignorant, and assured them that; after having invoked
the light, of the Holy Ghost upon his musings, he should think seriously
over what they had just taught him, in order to come to a resolution
salutary to himself and to the State.

Nothing could be more candid. Next day, at eight in the morning, there
was a great show in the cathedral of Saint Denis, and the population of
Paris, notwithstanding the prohibition of the League authorities, rushed
thither in immense crowds to witness the ceremony of the reconciliation
of the king. Henry went to the church, clothed as became a freshly
purified heretic, in white satin doublet and hose, white silk stockings,
and white silk shoes with white roses in them; but with a black hat and a
black mantle. There was a great procession with blare of trumpet and beat
of drum. The streets were strewn with flowers.

As Henry entered the great portal of the church, he found the Archbishop
of Bourges, seated in state, effulgent in mitre and chasuble, and
surrounded by other magnificent prelates in gorgeous attire.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" said the arch-bishop.

"I am the king," meekly replied Henry, "and I demand to be received into
the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church."

"Do you wish it sincerely?" asked the prelate.

"I wish it with all my heart," said the king.

Then throwing himself on his knees, the Bearne--great champion of the
Huguenots--protested before God that he would live and die in the
Catholic faith, and that he renounced all heresy.