Philip II. was the principal leader of this vast conspiracy. In his retreat of San-Lorenzo he incessantly revolved, as the published correspondence of our times attests, these great and dark thoughts. He understood but two things in the world,—the sovereign power of the prince in political matters, and the popes infallibility in questions of religion. The right of resistance to the temporal power, and the privilege of search on points of faith, were in his eyes the most detestable of crimes. All authority, in his idea, was concentrated in the hands of a few chiefs, and there was no liberty beyond or beneath them. The two swords were to strike together, to keep the people enslaved and trembling; and he added the axe of the executioner, with the fire of the inquisitor, and even the poniard of the assassin; for this (Roman) Catholic king descended to such a depth of infamy as to confer letters of nobility on the relations of Balthazar Gérard, the murderer of the prince of Orange. Philip II. had conceived this execrable system of terrorism, that it might redound to the profit of royalty and the pontificate. But it only resulted in the downfall of Spain and the execration of posterity. The Holy See entertained implacable resentment at the sight of heresy raising itself up so pertinaciously, and was desirous of establishing at any cost, the one faith, under one single spiritual chief. Cardinals, bishops, priests, Jesuits, and monks of all orders, went about spreading these maxims of extermination, at the courts and in the bosom of the people, from the pulpits and in the confessional. In France, Henry of Guise, _le Balafré_, was the soul of the League. Keeping himself at first in obscurity, he at length came more prominently forward, and made himself esteemed by the masses, in proportion to the contempt which Henry III. inspired. He endeavoured to be affable to wards the lower orders, was a sure friend, an inexorable enemy, generous towards those who were serviceable to him, prodigal of gold to the covetous, and never wanting in promises to the ambitious; he also showed attentions to the citizens and artisans of Paris, which were very flattering to their vanity. Capable of profound dissimulation, he yet assumed the frank and open air of a soldier. As a great captain he understood still better the art of gaining victories at the proper time, than that of merely achieving them. He evinced much zeal for the church of Rome, but without falling into the abject devotions of Henry III.; and, always watchful of his fortunes, he thought nothing more of religion than as a means of improving them.