esistance for any length of time.

This was the plan of Father Odo for putting Philip on the throne of
France, and at the same time lifting up the downtrodden Church, whose
priests, according to his statement, were so profligate, and whose tenets
were rejected by all but a small minority of the governing classes of the
country. Certainly it did not lack precision, but it remained to be seen
whether the Bearnese was to prove so very insignificant an antagonist as
the sanguine priest supposed.

For the third party--the moderate Catholics--had been making immense
progress in France, while the diplomacy of Philip had thus far steadily
counteracted their efforts at Rome. In vain had the Marquis Pisani, envoy
of the politicians' party, endeavoured to soften the heart of Clement
towards Henry. The pope lived in mortal fear of Spain, and the Duke of
Sessa, Philip's ambassador to the holy see, denouncing all these attempts
on the part of the heretic, and his friends, and urging that it was much
better for Rome that the pernicious kingdom of France should be
dismembered and subdivided, assured his holiness that Rome should be
starved, occupied, annihilated, if such abominable schemes should be for
an instant favoured.

Clement took to his bed with sickness brought on by all this violence,
but had nothing for it but to meet Pisani and other agents of the same
cause with a peremptory denial, and send most, stringent messages to his
legate in Paris, who needed no prompting.

There had already been much issuing of bulls by the pope, and much
burning of bulls by the hangman, according to decrees of the parliament
of Chalons and other friendly tribunals, and burning of Chalons decrees
by Paris hangmen, and edicts in favour of Protestants at Nantz and other
places--measures the enactment, repeal, and reenactment of which were to
mark the ebb and flow of the great tide of human opinion on the most
important of subjects, and the traces of which were to be for a long time
visible on the shores of time.

Early in 1593 Mayenne, yielding to the pressure of the Spanish party,
reluctantly consented to assemble the States-General of France, in order
that a king might be chosen. The duke, who came to be thoroughly known to
Alexander Farnese before the death of that subtle Italian, relied on his
capacity to outwit all the other champions of the League and agents of
Philip now that the master-spirit had been removed. As firmly opposed as
ever