Their chieftain, scarcely their representative--fit to lead his Puritans on the battle-field--was hardly a model for them elsewhere. Yet, though profligate in one respect, he was temperate in every other. In food, wine, and sleep, he was always moderate. Subtle and crafty in self-defence, he retained something of his old love of truth, of his hatred for liars. Hardly generous, perhaps, he was a friend of justice; while economy in a wandering king like himself was a necessary virtue, of which France one day was to feel the beneficent action. Reckless and headlong in appearance, he was in truth the most careful of men. On the religious question most cautious of all, he always left the door open behind him, disclaimed all bigotry of opinion, and earnestly implored the papists to seek, not his destruction, but his instruction. Yet, prudent as he was by nature in every other regard, he was all his life the slave of one woman or another; and it was by good luck rather than by sagacity that he did not repeatedly forfeit the fruits of his courage and conduct in obedience to his master-passion. Always open to conviction on the subject of his faith, he repudiated the appellation of heretic. A creed, he said, was not to be changed like a shirt, but only on due deliberation and under special advice. In his secret heart he probably regarded the two religions as his chargers, and was ready to mount alternately the one or the other, as each seemed the more likely to bear him safely in battle. The Bearnese was no Puritan, but he was most true to himself and to his own advancement. His highest principle of action was to reach his goal, and to that principle he was ever loyal. Feeling, too, that it was for the interest of France that he should succeed, he was even inspired--compared with others on the stage--by an almost lofty patriotism. Amiable by nature and by habit, he had preserved the most unimpaired good-humor throughout the horrible years which succeeded St. Bartholomew, during which he carried his life in his hand, and learned not to wear his heart upon his sleeve. Without gratitude, without resentment, without fear, without remorse, entirely arbitrary, yet with the capacity to use all men’s judgments; without convictions, save in regard to his dynastic interests, he possessed all the qualities necessary to success. He knew how to use his enemies. He knew how to use his friends, to abuse them, and to throw them away. He refused to assassinate Francis Alençon at the bidding of Henry III, but he attempted to procure the murder of the truest of his own friends, one of the noblest characters of the age, whose breast showed twelve scars received in his service--Agrippa D’Aubigné--because the honest soldier had refused to become his pimp, a service the king had implored upon his knees.