And it is this, in which consists a great part of the delicacy and beauty of these kinds of works, and which produces this effect; that, keeping always in the most exact limits of truth, yet an author may lawfully pretend to the glory of the invention; having the satisfaction of setting forth a new history, though, writing only the passages of a former age, he can relate almost nothing, but what has been written formerly, either in printed books, or manuscripts; which, though kept up in private, and little known, are notwithstanding, not the work of him who writes the history. As to what remains, none ought to wonder, that I make but one single volume on this subject, though the matter of it is of vast extent. I take not upon me to tell all that has been done, on occasion of the League, in all the provinces, nor to describe all the sieges; the taking and surprising of so many places, which were sometimes for the king, and at other times for the League; or all those petty skirmishes, which have drawn (if I may have liberty so to express myself) such deluges of blood from the veins of France. All these particulars ought to be the ingredients of the general history of this nation, under the reigns of the two last Henries, which may be read in many famous historians; and principally in the last tome of the late Monsieur de Mezeray, who has surpassed himself, in that part of his great work. I confine my undertaking within the compass of what is most essential in the particular history of the League, and have only applied myself to the discovery of its true origin, to unriddle its intrigues and artifices, and find out the most secret motives, by which the heads of that conspiracy have acted, to which the magnificent title of the Holy Union has been given with so much injustice; and, in consequence of this, to make an exact description of the principal actions, and the greatest and most signal events, which decided the fortune of the League; and this, in short, is the model of my work. As for the end which I proposed to myself, in conceiving it, I may boldly say, that it was to give a plain understanding to all such as shall read this history, that all sorts of associations which are formed against lawful sovereigns, particularly when the conspirators endeavour to disguise them under the specious pretence of religion and piety, as did the Huguenots and Leaguers, are at all times most criminal in the sight of God, and most commonly of unhappy and fatal consequence to those, who are either the authors or accomplices of the crime. THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE. LIB. III.