Paris was not sorry to have an excuse for submitting and in the following March when Henry’s troops entered the city in the grayness of dawn one day toward the end of the month there was no opposition. On his way to Notre Dame to hear mass, Henry, resplendent in velvet, gold-embroidered, mounted on a handsome gray charger and constantly doffing his white-plumed helmet, was greeted with cries of “Long live the king” and “Hail to peace.” When the Provost of the Merchants and some of the principal citizens the day after his entry brought him a gift of sweetmeats, the king, though not fully dressed, for his subjects’ ardor had brought them at an unduly early hour, accepted the offering graciously, saying, “Yesterday I received your hearts; to-day I receive your comfits no less willingly.” A Spanish troop had been called in by the League to assist them in holding the city against Henry. He allowed them to leave unmolested, contenting himself with watching them from a window as they passed through the Porte Saint Denis, and calling to them with cheerful insolence, “Gentlemen, my regards to your master--and never come back here!” In the calm that succeeded the nation began a career of prosperity which it had not known for two generations. With cheerful severity Henry caused a gallows to be erected near the Porte Saint Antoine “Whereon to hang any person of either religion who should be found so bold as to attempt anything against the public peace.” He was determined that every peasant in the kingdom should have a chicken in the pot for his Sunday dinner, and he used intelligent methods of bringing about that result. Not only was he a man of practical good sense himself, but he was able to recognize that quality in others, and he chose men of prudence and intelligence as his advisers, chief of them the Duke of Sully. He encouraged agriculture, introduced new industries, permitted religious toleration through the Edict of Nantes, made himself the friend alike of peasant and of noble. France throve as she had not had a chance to do for many a decade--and the power of the crown became stronger than ever. Henry’s early life had taught him to be active, and he lost no time in winning Paris to his friendship in various ways. He did not treat it like an enemy but as a returned prodigal, and the citizens lost none of their old privileges while they gained the civic improvements about which their new monarch busied himself promptly. He began the rebuilding of the city with the high roofed structures of brick and stone combined which showed that the classic outlines of the Renaissance were on the wane and which prefaced the Italian forms of the next reign.