r
from the throne than Montpensier was at that moment; but at no period of
his life would he have consented to disgrace himself by attempting the
dismemberment of the realm. So far from entering for a moment into the
subject-matter of the duke's discourse, he gave him and all his
colleagues distinctly to understand that he would rather die a thousand
deaths than listen to suggestions which would cover his family and the
royal dignity with infamy.

Rarely has political cynicism been displayed in more revolting shape than
in this deliberate demonstration by the leading patricians and generals
of France, to whom patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea. Thus signally
was their greediness to convert a national disaster into personal profit
rebuked by the king. Henry was no respecter of the People, which he
regarded as something immeasurably below his feet. On the contrary, he
was the most sublime self-seeker of them all; but his courage, his
intelligent ambition, his breadth and strength of purpose, never
permitted him to doubt that his own greatness was inseparable from the
greatness of France. Thus he represented a distinct and wholesome
principle--the national integrity of a great homogeneous people at a
period when that integrity seemed, through domestic treason and foreign
hatred, to be hopelessly lost. Hence it is not unnatural that he should
hold his place in the national chronicle as Henry the Great.

Meantime, while the military events just recorded had been occurring in
the southern peninsula, the progress of the archduke and his lieutenants
in the north against the king and against the republic had been
gratifying to the ambition of that martial ecclesiastic. Soon after the
fall of Calais, De Rosne had seized the castles of Guynes and Hames,
while De Mexia laid siege to the important stronghold of Ardres. The
garrison, commanded by Count Belin, was sufficiently numerous and well
supplied to maintain the place until Henry, whose triumph at La Fere
could hardly be much longer delayed, should come to its relief. To the
king's infinite dissatisfaction, however, precisely as Don Alvario de
Osorio was surrendering La Fere to him, after a seven months' siege,
Ardres was capitulating to De Mexia. The reproaches upon Belin for
cowardice, imbecility, and bad faith, were bitter and general. All his
officers had vehemently protested against the surrender, and Henry at
first talked of cutting off his head. It was hardly probab