He wiped, with his trembling hand, the chill dew that stood upon his brow,
and waited, as the king had commanded, till the chapter was finished.

The end of Charles IX. is well known. A dreadful complaint, a sweat of
blood, which many historians attribute to poison, and which the Huguenots
maintained to be a punishment inflicted on him by Heaven for the massacre
of their brethren, rendered the latter months of his life a period of
horrible torture. At his death, Henry, having every thing to dread from
the animosity of Catharine, and from that of the Duke of Anjou, Charles's
successor, fled from Paris, and took refuge in his kingdom of Navarre.

THE BARON VON STEIN.[16]

"It is to the great abilities, enlightened patriotism, and enduring
constancy of the BARON STEIN that Prussia is indebted for the measures
which laid the foundation for the resurrection of the monarchy."--ALISON.

"Baron Stein," says Bourrienne, "has been too little known;"--and
unquestionably, considering what he was to Prussia, and through Prussia to
Europe, at the most important crisis of recent history, he is too little
known still. Why is this? Plainly, in the first place, because he had the
misfortune to be a German statesman, and not a French one;--these French
do make such a noise in the world, partly with real cannons, partly with
artificial volcanoes and puerile pyrotechny of all kinds, that a man
cannot live and have ears without hearing about them. Celebrity is,
indeed, a very cheap affair, according to the French fashion; restlessness
and recklessness are the main elements of it. Only keep spurting and
spitting about obstreperously, and the most stiff ears must at length be
converted. As to real character and substantial worth, that must not give
you a moment's concern. Is not Catiline to this day as _famous_ a man as
Cicero? and is not the celebrity of Bonaparte, who was (_pace tanti
nominis_) nothing better than a bold and brilliant blackguard, equal to
that of the Apostle Paul, who was a saint? Yes, verily; and M. Thiers, and
the hot war-spirits in France, know it very well: but as for your great,
meditative, unobtrusive, honest, truthful, and laborious German--your
devoted Scharnhorst, for instance, who fell at Lutzen--the great world
hears not of such a man, unless by accident, though his life be a living
epitome of the gospel. But there are other Germans, too, as fiery, and
hot, and volcanic as any Frenchman, of whom, howeve