ally, the Huguenot-Catholic Prince of Bearne, was
making a dashing, and, on the whole, successful campaign in the heart of
his own kingdom. The constable of Castile, Don Ferdinando de Velasco, one
of Spain's richest grandees and poorest generals, had been sent with an
army of ten thousand men to take the field in Burgundy against the man
with whom the great Farnese had been measuring swords so lately, and with
not unmingled success, in Picardy. Biron, with a sudden sweep, took
possession of Aussone, Autun, and Beaune, but on one adventurous day
found himself so deeply engaged with a superior force of the enemy in the
neighbourhood of Fontaine Francaise, or St. Seine, where France's great
river takes its rise, as to be nearly cut off and captured. But Henry
himself was already in the field, and by one of those mad, reckless
impulses which made him so adorable as a soldier and yet so profoundly
censurable as a commander-in-chief, he flung himself, like a young
lieutenant, with a mere handful of cavalry, into the midst of the fight,
and at the imminent peril of his own life succeeded in rescuing the
marshal and getting off again unscathed. On other occasions Henry said he
had fought for victory, but on that for dear life; and, even as in the
famous and foolish skirmish at Aumale three years before, it was absence
of enterprise or lack of cordiality on the part of his antagonists, that
alone prevented a captive king from being exhibited as a trophy of
triumph for the expiring League.

But the constable of Castile was not born to cheer the heart of his
prudent master with such a magnificent spectacle. Velasco fell back to
Gray and obstinately refused to stir from his entrenchments, while Henry
before his eyes laid siege to Dijon. On the 28th June the capital of
Burgundy surrendered to its sovereign, but no temptations could induce
the constable to try the chance of a battle. Henry's movements in the
interior were more successful than were the operations nearer the
frontier, but while the monarch was thus cheerfully fighting for his
crown in France, his envoys were winning a still more decisive campaign
for him in Rome.

D'Ossat and Perron had accomplished their diplomatic task with consummate
ability, and, notwithstanding the efforts and the threats of the Spanish
ambassador and the intrigues of his master, the absolution was granted.
The pope arose early on the morning of the 5th August, and walked
barefoot from his palace