the national mind, manifesting itself not merely in letters, but in religious conviction and political design. The Tudors on the whole spread their sails to the wind, and the Stuarts were lost in attempting the contrary. In the history of France, the influence and working of the national mind are often so inapparent, that a monarch would have been puzzled who thought to consult it. It comes strongly in support of my theory to observe, that during such periods of syncope no great man ever made his appearance. Through long epochs, indeed, opinion in France there was none, if one will not acknowledge as such a worship of expediency, and a tendency to fall prostrate in despair before whatever power came forward to play the bold bully and insist on dominating. True, the nation was apt to awaken at intervals to a sense of a condition so abject, and to play the maniac in shaking off its fetters and asserting its rights. But the vigour seldom survived the access of rage; purpose was lost in frenzy, and the great object of humanity in the imposing sound and glitter of merely fanciful words. Such disquisitions, however, would require not a preface but a volume. It has been here indulged in merely to vindicate the cause and necessity of narratives of things, at least as an indispensable background to the representation of characters and persons. The period embraced in the present volume forms the most prominent and stirring portion of French history, anterior to the revolution. It was an age fertile in distinguished men, however little they may have achieved beyond negation and repression. It only shows that circumstances were too strong for genius, and that the national mind did not sufficiently inspire or support its great men. Those who initiated the Reformation, and strove to make it prevail in France, were marked by superior capacity and strength of character; yet they failed, and the failure to emancipate the intellect of the country in this one prime respect brought on the failure to establish any system of public liberty. The history of this double failure is comprised in the present volume, and offers the most important subject of study. To do it justice surpassed, no doubt, the powers of the Author as well as the space which his plan allowed him to command. But the landmarks have been carefully laid down, and the great facts of the epoch so narrated and connected as at least to afford the student a full view of the time, and to facilitate, if desired, more minute researches. In the course of the Author's reading and inquiring, he has been fortunate to light upon some new and interesting sources of information. The collections of diplomatic and other correspondence connected with France, and preserved in the State Paper Office, make some revelations which will be new to French historians. Not the least curious is the fact of Cecil's attempt to substitute Alençon for Anjou on the throne of France: a letter in the great minister's handwriting attests the plot. Buckingham, too, appears to far greater advantage in these papers than French memoir-writers have allowed him. The MSS. Life and Biography of Nicolas Pithou, in the Bibliothèque Impériale, the Letters of M. de Seurre, during his first embassy from Charles the Ninth to Queen Elizabeth, preserved in the library of Grenoble, and the bundles of Simancas Papers marked Francia, and kept in the French archives, for the inspection of which the Author is indebted to the kindness of M. de Beauchesne and M. Teulet, have furnished new and interesting materials. The correspondence of the Spanish envoys in Paris, after and before the St. Bartholomew massacre, to be found in the Simancas papers, throw especial light upon that mysterious catastrophe. These also illustrate the Ligue and Spanish influence during its operation; but the Manuscrits de Mesmes, in the Bibliothèque Impériale, even more fully elucidate the events of that time. The Author has consulted the great collections of MSS. in the Bibliothèque Impériale, and other Paris libraries; but they form an ocean in which, not merely a life, but lives might be spent. All that was possible was to dive into such epochs as needed and promised enlightenment from these vast sources. 1 CONTENTS Antagonism of Ideas replaces that of Persons - Conflicting Principles of Absolutism and Liberty; the one Queen Elizabeth's knowledge of the Plot The Chancellor De l'Hôpital issues the Edict of Romorantin Seizure of La Sague, and Disclosure of the Intention of the 29 Trial of the Prince interrupted by the Death of the young |