On 11 June, 1584, the Duc d’Anjou died of consumption at Château-Thierry. His death made the King of Navarre heir-presumptive to the French crown, and, as Henri III. had, for some time past, abandoned all hope of leaving children behind him, the question of the succession at once became of paramount importance. But the accession of a heretic to the throne was repugnant to the whole Catholic population, and was certain to be violently opposed by a considerable section of it. For the intimate connexion of the State and the orthodox Church was held to be a fundamental law of the monarchy; and even men of moderate views, who were willing enough that the Huguenots should be tolerated, were alarmed at the prospect of their domination. Very intelligent, whenever he could contrive to free himself for a time from his idle and voluptuous habits, Henri III. had foreseen this, and, about the middle of May--that is to say, about three weeks before Anjou’s death--had despatched one of his favourites, the Duc d’Épernon, to the King of Navarre, “bearing him letters in which he admonished, exhorted, and entreated him, seeing that the life of the Duc d’Anjou, his brother, was despaired of, to come to Court and go to Mass, because he desired to recognize him as his true heir and successor, and to give him such rank and dignity near his person as his qualification of brother-in-law and heir to the throne deserved.” The Protestants testified the greatest uneasiness at these overtures, and began to approach Condé, with a view to his adoption as the leader of the party, in the event of the King of Navarre again renouncing their faith. But their alarm was groundless, for, though Henri held but lightly by his creed, and all the Catholics about him besought him to remove the one obstacle to his succession, he felt that the time had not come when he could afford to offend the Huguenots. And so, with many protestations of gratitude and loyalty, he declared himself unable to accede to his Majesty’s wishes. The fact that the legitimate heir to the throne was a heretic made the renewal of the civil war inevitable, and, on the death of Anjou, the Guises and the League at once began to organize their forces for the coming struggle. The wretched, vacillating King was intimidated into giving them his countenance and support; and, on 15 July, 1585, signed the Treaty of Nemours, which promised the revocation of all the edicts in favour of toleration, and placed at the disposal of the League all the resources of the Crown. Having secured the assistance of the temporal power, they next summoned the spiritual to their aid, and persuaded the new Pope, Sixtus V., to launch against the two princes a Bull of Excommunication, wherein he declared them “degraded from their fiefs and baronies, and incapacitated from succession to the Crown of France.” The cousins issued a scornful response, a copy of which was posted up even in Rome itself, and war began.