M. Mignet, who examines all things as an historian, and gives but short pages to emotion, has admirably distinguished and explained the different phases of Marie Stuart’s captivity, and the secret springs which were set to work at various periods. He has, especially, cast a new light, aided by Spanish documents in the Archives of Simancas, on the slow preparations of the enterprise undertaken by Philip II., that fruitless and tardy crusade, delayed until after the death of Marie Stuart, which ended in the disastrous shipwreck of the invincible Armada. Issuing from this brilliant and stormy episode of the history of the sixteenth century, which has been so strongly and judiciously set before us by M. Mignet, full of these scenes of violence, treachery, and iniquity, and without having the innocence to believe that humanity has done forever with such deeds, we congratulate ourselves in spite of everything, and rejoice that we live in an age of softened and ameliorated public morals. We exclaim with M. de Tavannes, when he relates in his “Memoirs” the life and death of Marie Stuart: “Happy he who lives in a safe State; where good and evil are rewarded and punished according to their deserts.” Happy the times and the communities where a certain general morality and human respect for opinion, where a penal Code, and especially the continual check of publicity, exist to interdict, even to the boldest, those criminal resolutions which every human heart, if left to itself, is ever tempted to engender. SAINTE-BEUVE, _Causeries du Lundi_ (1851). DISCOURSE IV. ÉLISABETH OF FRANCE, QUEEN OF SPAIN. I write here of the Queen of Spain, Élisabeth of France, a true daughter of France in everything, a beautiful, wise, virtuous, spiritual, and good queen if ever there was one; and I believe since Saint Élisabeth no one has borne that name who surpassed her in all sorts of virtues and perfections, although that beautiful name of Élisabeth has been fateful of goodness, virtue, sanctity, and perfection to those who have borne it, as many believe.[11] When she was born at Fontainebleau, the king her grandfather, and her father and mother made very great joy of it; you would have said she was a lucky star bringing good hap to France; for her baptism brought peace to us, as did her marriage. See how good fortunes are gathered in one person to be distributed on diverse occasions; for then it was that peace was made with King Henry [VIII.] of England; and to confirm and strengthen it our king made him her sponsor and gave to his goddaughter the beautiful name of Élisabeth; at whose birth and baptism the rejoicings were as great as at those of the little King François the last.