his conversion, and the other causing the absolution granted by the pope to be at the same time considered as re-establishing Henry IV. in his rights to the crown, whereof it was contended that he was deprived by the excommunication and censures of Sixtus V. and Gregory XIV., which this absolution was to remove. The two French negotiators rejected these attempts, and steadily maintained the complete independence of the king’s temporal sovereignty, as well as the power of intervention of the French episcopate in his absolution. Clement VIII. was a judicious and prudent pope; and he did not persist. The absolution was solemnly pronounced on the 17th of September, 1595, by the pope himself, from a balcony erected in St. Peter’s Square, and in presence of the population. The gates of the church were thrown open and a Te Deum was sung. A grand ceremony took place immediately afterwards in the church of St. Louis of the French. Rome was illuminated for three days, and, on the 7th of November following, a pope’s messenger left for Paris with the bull of absolution drawn up in the terms agreed upon. Another reconciliation, of less solemnity, but of great importance, that between the Duke of Mayenne and Henry IV., took place a week after the absolution pronounced by the pope. As soon as the civil war, continued by the remnants of the dying League, was no more than a disgraceful auxiliary to the foreign war between France and Spain, Mayenne was in his soul both grieved and disgusted at it. The affair of Fontaine-Francaise gave him an opportunity of bringing matters to a crisis; he next day broke with the Constable of Castile, Don Ferdinand de Velasco, who declined to follow his advice, and at once entered into secret negotiations with the king. Henry wrote from Lyons to Du Plessis-Mornay, on the 24th of August, 1595, “The Duke of Mayenne has asked me to allow him three months for the purpose of informing the enemy of his determination in order to induce them to join him in recognizing me and serving me. So doing, he has also agreed to bind himself from this present date to recognize me and serve me, whatever his friends may do.” On the 23d of September following, Henry IV., still at Lyons, sent to M. de la Chatre:--