Grief of the king.
Henry, as soon as informed of her sickness, mounted his horse to gallop to Paris. He had proceeded but half way when he was met by a courier who informed him that Gabrielle was dead. The dreadful blow staggered the king, and he would have fallen from his horse had he not been supported by his attendants. He retired to Fontainebleau, shut himself up from all society, and surrendered himself to the most bitter grief. Sully in vain endeavored to console him. It was long before he could turn his mind to any business. But there is no pain whose anguish time will not diminish. New cares and new loves at length engrossed the heart where Gabrielle had for a few brief years so supremely reigned.
The divorce.
Henrietta d'Entragues.
The utterly profligate Marguerite, now that Gabrielle was dead, whom she of course hated, was perfectly willing to assent to a divorce. While arrangements were making to accomplish this end, the king chanced to meet a fascinating, yet pert and heartless coquette, Henriette d'Entragues, daughter of Francis Balzac, Lord of Entragues. Though exceedingly beautiful, she was a calculating, soulless girl, who was glad of a chance to sell herself for rank and money. She thus readily bartered her beauty to the king, exacting, with the most cool financiering, as the price, a written promise that he would marry her as soon as he should obtain a divorce from Marguerite of Valois, upon condition that she, within the year, should bear him a son.
The king, having written the promise, placed it in the hands of Sully. The bold minister read it, then tore it into fragments. The king, amazed at such boldness, exclaimed in a passion, "Sir, I believe that you are mad."
Bold fidelity of Sully.
"True, sire, I am," replied Sully; "but would to God that I were the only madman in France."
But Henry, notwithstanding his anger, could not part from a minister whose services were so invaluable. He immediately drew up another promise, which he placed in the hands of the despicable beauty. This rash and guilty pledge was subsequently the cause of great trouble to the king.
Marriage to Maria of Medici.
Henry having obtained a divorce, the nation demanded that he should form a connection which should produce a suitable heir to inherit the throne. Thus urged, and as Henrietta did not give birth to the wished-for son, Henry reluctantly married, in the year 1600, Maria of Medici, niece of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Anecdote.
Maria was a domineering, crafty, ambitious woman, who embittered the life of the king. She was very jealous, and with reason enough, of the continued influence of Henrietta; and the palace was the scene of disgraceful domestic broils. Henry, in one of his letters to Sully, describes the queen as "terribly robust and healthy." But when she gave birth to a son who was undeniably heir to the throne, thus allaying the fears of a disputed succession, the whole nation rejoiced, and Henry became somewhat reconciled to his unattractive spouse. The king was exceedingly fond of this child. One day the Spanish embassador, a dignified Castilian, was rather suddenly ushered into the royal presence at Fontainebleau. The monarch was on all fours on the floor, running about the room with the little dauphin on his back. Raising his eyes, he said to the embassador,
"Are you a father?"
"Yes, sire," was the reply.
"Then I may finish my play," said Henry, and he took another trot around the room.
Henrietta and her relatives were greatly exasperated that the king did not fulfill his promise of marriage. The father and daughter, joined by the Count d'Auvergne, plotted against the king's life. They were arrested and condemned to death. The king, however, transmuted their punishment to exile.
Grand political scheme.
One of the grandest schemes of Henry deserves particular mention. Reflecting deeply upon the wars with which Europe had ever been desolated, and seeing the occasion for this in the innumerable states and nations into which Europe was divided, of various degrees of power, and each struggling for its own selfish interest, he proposed to unite all the states of Europe in one vast Christian Republic. The whole continent was to be divided into fifteen states, as uniform in size and power as possible. These states were to be, according to their choice, monarchical or republican. They were to be associated on a plan somewhat resembling that of the United States of America.
Mode of preventing religious quarrels.
Nothing can more conclusively show the entire absence of correct notions of religious toleration prevailing at that day than the plan proposed to prevent religious quarrels. Wherever any one form of faith predominated, that was to be maintained as the national faith. In Catholic states, there were to be no Protestants; in Protestant states, no Catholics. The minority, however, were not to be exterminated; they were only to be compelled to emigrate to the countries where their own form of faith prevailed. All pagans and Mohammedans were to be driven out of Europe into Asia. To enforce this change, an army of two hundred and seventy thousand infantry, fifty thousand cavalry, two hundred cannon, and one hundred and twenty ships of war, was deemed amply sufficient.
The first step was to secure the co-operation of two or three of the most powerful kings of Europe. This would render success almost certain. Sully examined the plan with the utmost care in all its details. Henry wished first to secure the approval of England, Sweden, and Denmark.
Assassination of the king.
But, in the midst of these schemes of grandeur, Henry was struck down by the hand of an assassin. On the fourteenth of May, 1610, the king left the Louvre at four o'clock in the afternoon to visit Sully, who was sick. Preparations were making for the public entry of the queen, who, after a long delay, had just been crowned. The city was thronged; the day was fine, and the curtains of the coach were drawn up. Several nobles were in the spacious carriage with the king. As the coach was turning out of the street Honoré into the narrow street Ferronnerie, it was stopped by two carts which blocked up the way. Just at that instant a man from the crowd sprang upon a spoke of the wheel, and struck a dagger into the king just above the heart. Instantly repeating the blow, the heart was pierced. Blood gushed from the wound and from the mouth of the king, and, without uttering a word, he sank dead in the arms of his friends.
The wretched assassin, a fanatic monk, was immediately seized by the guard. With difficulty they protected him from being torn to pieces by the infuriated people. His name was Francis Ravaillac. According to the savage custom of the times, he was subsequently put to death with the most frightful tortures.
Character of Henry IV.
The lifeless body of the king was immediately taken to the Tuileries and placed upon a bed. Surgeons and physicians hurried to the room only to gaze upon his corpse. No language can depict the grief and despair of France at his death. He had won the love of the whole nation, and, to the present day, no one hears the name of Henry the Fourth mentioned in France but with affection. He was truly the father of his people. All conditions, employments, and professions were embraced in his comprehensive regard. He spared no toil to make France a happy land. He was a man of genius and of instinctive magnanimity. In conversation he had no rival. His profound and witty sayings which have been transmitted to us are sufficient to form a volume. His one great and almost only fault sadly tarnishes his otherwise fair and honorable fame.
In Henry commenced the reign of the house of Bourbon. For nearly two hundred years the family retained the crown. It is now expelled, and the members are wandering in exile through foreign lands.
The truth to be enforced.
There is one great truth which this narrative enforces: it is the doctrine of freedom of conscience. It was the denial of this simple truth which deluged France in blood and woe. The recognition of this one sentiment would have saved for France hundreds of thousands of lives, and millions of treasure. Let us take warning. We need it.
Let us emblazon upon our banner the noble words, "Toleration – perfect civil and religious toleration." But Toleration is not a slave. It is a spirit of light and of liberty. It has much to give, but it has just as much to demand. It bears the olive-branch in one hand, and the gleaming sword in the other. I grant to you, it says, perfect liberty of opinion and of expression, and I demand of you the same.
Free speech.
Free press.
Free men.
Let us then inscribe upon the arch which spans our glorious Union, making us one in its celestial embrace, "Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free men."
Then shall that arch beam upon us like God's bow of promise in the cloud, proclaiming that this land shall never be deluged by the surges of civil war – that it never shall be inundated by flames and blood.
The human mind is now so roused that it will have this liberty; and if there are any institutions of religion or of civil law which can not stand this scrutiny, they are doomed to die. The human mind will move with untrammeled sweep through the whole range of religious doctrine, and around the whole circumference and into the very centre of all political assumptions.
Practical application of the moral.
If the Catholic bishop have a word to say, let him say it. If some one, rising in the spirit and power of Martin Luther, has a reply to make, let him make it. Those who wish to listen to the one or the other, let them do so. Those who wish to close their ears, let them have their way.
Our country is one. Our liberty is national. Let us then grant toleration every where throughout our wide domain, in Maine and in Georgia, amid the forests of the Aroostook and upon the plains of Kansas.