in matters of policy and negotiation, and Mayenne’s adviser since 1589, Villeroi, declared “that he would not bide in a place where the laws, the honor of the nation and the independence of the kingdom were held so cheap;” and he left Paris on the 28th of June. * * * * * Four months after the conclusion of the treaty of Vervins, on the 13th of September, 1598, Philip II. died at the Escurial, and on the 3rd of April, 1603, a second great royal personage, Queen Elizabeth, disappeared from the scene. She had been, as regards the Protestantism of Europe, what Philip II. had been, as regards Catholicism, a powerful and able patron; but what Philip II. did from fanatical conviction, Elizabeth did from patriotic feeling; she had small faith in Calvinistic doctrines and no liking for Puritanic sects; the Catholic Church, the power of the pope excepted, was more to her mind than the Anglican Church, and her private preferences differed greatly from her public practices. Thus at the beginning of the seventeenth century Henry IV. was the only one remaining of the three great sovereigns who, during the sixteenth, had disputed, as regarded religion and politics, the preponderance in Europe. He had succeeded in all his kingly enterprises; he had become a Catholic in France without ceasing to be the prop of the Protestants in Europe; he had made peace with Spain without embroiling himself with England, Holland and Lutheran Germany. He had shot up, as regarded ability and influence, in the eyes of all Europe. It was just then that he gave the strongest proof of his great judgment and political sagacity; he was not intoxicated with success; he did not abuse his power; he did not aspire to distant conquests or brilliant achievements; he concerned himself chiefly with the establishment of public order in his kingdom and with his people’s prosperity. His well-known saying, “I want all my peasantry to have a fowl in the pot every Sunday,” was a desire worthy of Louis XII. Henry IV. had a sympathetic nature; his grandeur did not lead him to forget the nameless multitudes whose fate depended upon his government. He had, besides, the rich, productive, varied, inquiring mind of one who took an interest not only in the welfare of the French peasantry, but in the progress of the whole French community, progress agricultural, industrial, commercial, scientific, and literary. * * * * *