loped, detected,
neutralized almost daily, became rapidly an adept in Medicean
state-chemistry. Charles IX. in his grave, Henry III. on the throne,
Alencon in the Huguenot camp--Henry at last made his escape. The brief
war and peace of Monsieur succeeded, and the King of Navarre formally
abjured the Catholic creed. The parties were now sharply defined. Guise
mounted upon the League, Henry astride upon the Reformation, were
prepared to do battle to the death. The temporary "war of the amorous"
was followed by the peace of Fleix.

Four years of peace again; four fat years of wantonness and riot
preceding fourteen hungry famine-stricken years of bloodiest civil war.
The voluptuousness and infamy of the Louvre were almost paralleled in
vice, if not in splendour, by the miniature court at Pau. Henry's Spartan
grandfather would scarce have approved the courses of the youth, whose
education he had commenced on so simple a scale. For Margaret of Valois,
hating her husband, and living in most undisguised and promiscuous
infidelity to him, had profited by her mother's lessons. A seraglio of
maids of honour ministered to Henry's pleasures, and were carefully
instructed that the peace and war of the kingdom were playthings in their
hands. While at Paris royalty was hopelessly sinking in a poisonous
marsh, there was danger that even the hardy nature of the Bearnese would
be mortally enervated by the atmosphere in which he lived.

The unhappy Henry III., baited by the Guises, worried by Alencon and his
mother, implored the King of Navarre to return to Paris and the Catholic
faith. M. de Segur, chief of Navarre's council, who had been won over
during a visit to the capital, where he had made the discovery that
"Henry III. was an angel, and his ministers devils," came back to Pau,
urging his master's acceptance of the royal invitation. Henry wavered.
Bold D'Aubigne, stanchest of Huguenots, and of his friends, next day
privately showed Segur a palace-window opening on a very steep precipice
over the Bayae, and cheerfully assured him that he should be flung from
it did he not instantly reverse his proceedings, and give his master
different advice. If I am not able to do the deed myself, said D'Aubigne,
here are a dozen more to help me. The chief of the council cast a glance
behind him, saw a number of grim Puritan soldiers, with their hats
plucked down upon their brows, looking very serious; so made his bow, and
quite changed his line o