‘Loin du monde elle fait sa demeure et son giste Son œil tout penitent ne pleure qu’eau beniste. Enfin c’est un exemple, en ce siècle tortu D’amour, de charité, d’honneur et de vertu. Pour beate partout le peuple la renomme, Et la gazette même a déja dit à Rome, La voyant aimer Dieu et la chair maîtriser Qu’on n’attend que sa mort pour la canoniser.’ Clearly the style of comedy had been found when a man could write like that, and Molière, fifty years later, had only to choose among the lines of Régnier when he wished to draw the character of Tartuffe. ‘Le péché que l’on cache est demi-pardonné,’ becomes in Tartuffe ‘Et ce n’est point pécher que pécher en silence.’ And in many other instances our Chartrain poet has supplied the great comedian with lines and hints, which Molière, true to his principle, _Je prends mon bien où je le trouve_, has appropriated as unblushingly and as successfully as a Vergil. This, apart from his other merits, and in spite of his faults, is in itself enough to justify the existence of the _rimes cyniques_ of Mathurin Régnier. CHAPTER XI _The Coronation of Henri Quatre_ When Henri III. fell beneath the dagger of the assassin, Jacques Clément, the King of Navarre was hailed King of France at S. Cloud. But the fair realm which was one day to be his ‘Et par droit de naissance Et par droit de conquête,’ was far from being prepared as yet to accept Henri Quatre as its ruler. The throne of S. Louis could not, in the eyes of a large section of the nation, belong to a heretic, and Henri de Béarn was a Huguenot. Paris, which was devoted to the Catholic League, closed its gates to him, and Chartres, equally enthusiastic in the same cause, refused to admit him. Resolved to make himself master of a town which was regarded as a boulevard of the capital, Henri had forced the rest of the Duchy to recognise him by the end of 1590, but Chartres was still stubborn. He sent, therefore, Marshal de Biron to lay siege to the town, and he began operations on the 12th February. But, contrary to the expectations of Henri, who was in communication with many of the citizens, the resistance offered by the Catholic city was vigorous and prolonged. Instead of a few days the siege lasted two months, and the defence was conducted with such energy and skill that M. de Réclainville, who had been summoned to their aid, with some troops of the Ligue, complimented the citizens on their bravery and resource. He had taken a part, he said, in many an affair, but never had he seen a finer struggle than the siege of Chartres.