power of mankind to endure almost
preternatural misery, or our indignation more deeply aroused by the
cruelty with which the sublimest principles of human nature may be made
to serve the purposes of selfish ambition and grovelling superstition,
than this famous leaguer.

Rarely have men at any epoch defended their fatherland against foreign
oppression with more heroism than that which was manifested by the
Parisians of 1590 in resisting religious toleration, and in obeying a
foreign and priestly despotism. Men, women, and children cheerfully laid
down their lives by thousands in order that the papal legate and the king
of Spain might trample upon that legitimate sovereign of France who was
one day to become the idol of Paris and of the whole kingdom.

A census taken at the beginning of the siege had showed a populace of two
hundred thousand souls, with a sufficiency of provisions, it was thought,
to last one month. But before the terrible summer was over--so completely
had the city been invested--the bushel of wheat was worth three hundred
and sixty crowns, rye and oats being but little cheaper. Indeed, grain
might as well have cost three thousand crowns the bushel, for the prices
recorded placed it beyond the reach of all but the extremely wealthy. The
flesh of horses, asses, dogs, cats, rats had become rare luxuries. There
was nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons. And the priests
and monks of every order went daily about the streets, preaching
fortitude in that great resistance to heresy, by which Paris was earning
for itself a crown of glory, and promising the most direct passage to
paradise for the souls of the wretched victims who fell daily, starved to
death, upon the pavements. And the monks and priests did their work
nobly, aiding the general resolution by the example of their own courage.
Better fed than their fellow citizens, they did military work in trench,
guard-house and rampart, as the population became rapidly unfit, from
physical exhaustion, for the defence of the city.

The young Duke of Nemours, governor of the place, manifested as much
resolution and conduct in bringing his countrymen to perdition as if the
work in which he was engaged had been the highest and holiest that ever
tasked human energies. He was sustained in his task by that proud
princess, his own and Mayenne's mother, by Madame Montpensier, by the
resident triumvirate of Spain, Mendoza, Commander Moreo, and John Baptist