de Rouen Married (2), in 1600, Marie de Medici [Maltese Cross]1642 | Louis XIII Roi de France et Navarre 1610. Union of the two Kingdoms, France and Navarre 1620. ] [Illustration: _The Arms of Navarre_] The arms of Navarre have ever been a mystery to antiquarians, but it seems there is some semblance of Basque tradition and folk-lore in it all, in that there is an old Basque game which is played upon a diagram, or scale, traced upon the ground, and following the principal outlines of the blazonings of the ancient kings of Navarre. Which came first, the hen or the egg? Authorities differ, and so it is with the Basque game of _laz Marellas_, and the royal arms of the Navarres. Labastide says the game came down from the time when the Basques of to-day were originally Phoenicians. If this be so, the royal arms were but a copy of something that had gone before. Certainly they form as curious and enigmatic an armorial device as is found in heraldry. The Royaume de Navarre has so completely disappeared and been so absorbed by France that it takes a considerable knowledge of geography and history to be able to place it precisely upon the map of modern Europe, hidden away as it was in what are now the two arrondissements of Bayonne and Saint-Palais. They were a noble race, the men of Béarn and Navarre, the Basques especially, and the questionable traits of the _cagots_ and gypsies have left but little impress on the masses. Henri IV, faithful in his sentiment for his first subjects, would have shown them his predilection by allowing them to remain an independent monarchy. He would not that the kingdom of his mother be mingled with that of France, but intriguing counsel prevailed and the alliance was made, though Navarre escaped conquest and was still ruled by the sceptre of its legitimate sovereign. How near France came to being ruled by Navarre instead of Navarre by France is recalled by the following bit of recorded history. When Philippe V (le Long) came to the throne of France (1316) his right was contested by many princes. Among others the crown was claimed by Jeanne de Navarre, but an assembly of bishops, seigneurs and bourgeois of Paris declared for the Salic law--which proscribed the right to rule the French to one of the female sex, and this against feudal rights as they were known and protected in the satellite kingdoms surrounding the royal domain. It was agreed later (by Philippe-le-Long) that if the widow of Louis X should have another female child, the rights appertaining to Navarre should belong to her and her stepsister Jeanne, making it an independent monarchy again.