282 PEACE OF BERGERAC. [Book III. thing he had obtained to his having joined their party. The Court also succeeded in seducing Marshal Damville from the "cause." An aristocrat and a soldier, Damville was little inclined to obey the commands of stormy meetings of civilians, and to connect himself with the democratic republic of the Hugonots. More difficulty was experienced in treating with the King of Navarre; but at length he also was induced to accept the terms of a peace which was published at BERGERAC in September 1577.12 There were two treaties, one public, the other secret; but it is unnecessary to detail conditions which were only meant to be observed so long as might be convenient, and it will suffice to state, that, on the whole, they were less favourable to the Protestants than those of the Peace of Monsieur. The only point to be remarked is, that by one of the articles the King, as it were by a side wind, suppressed the Catholic League as well as the Hugonot confederations.13 The Pope and the King of Spain, as well as the Guises, had used their utmost endeavours to prevent the concluding of this treaty; and Gregory XIII. had offered the King 900,000 livres towards the expenses to be incurred by continuing the war. But many circumstances combined to incline the French Court to peace; particularly the refusal of the States to vote any money, the menaces of John Casimir, and the disclosures respecting the projects of the Guises. The King, instead of availing himself of this interval of repose to fortify himself against his enemies, only sank deeper and deeper into vice and infamy. His conduct can be compared only with that of the weakest as well as the worst of the Roman emperors, and offers, in the portentous union of beastly impurity with fantastic superstition, a striking parallel to that of Elagabalus. At the opening of the States-General he appeared in diamond ear-rings; in his orgies he would often assume the manners and dress of a female 14; and though the national exchequer was empty, he and his mother gave fêtes that cost 100,000 francs; in some of which the guests were waited on by women either half naked or in man's attire. The minions by whom Henry was surrounded were CHAP. VIII.] TREATY OF NÉRAC. 283 ferocious as well as profligate; duels and assassinations were of everyday occurrence; the court resembled at once a slaughterhouse and a brothel, although, amid all this corruption, the King was the slave of monks and Jesuits whom he implicitly obeyed. It was about this time (December 1578) that he instituted the military order of the Holy Ghost, that of St. Michael having fallen into contempt through being prostituted to unworthy objects. Meanwhile the Guises were using every effort to rekindle the war, which Catherine, on the other hand, was endeavouring to prevent. With this view she travelled, in August, into the southern provinces, and had an interview with Henry of Navarre at Nérac, 'bringing with her Henry's wife, her daughter Margaret; a circumstance, however, which did not add to the pleasure of their meeting. Henry received the ladies coldly, and they retired into Languedoc, where they passed the remainder of the year. Nevertheless the negociations were sedulously pursued; for a peace with the Hugonots was, at this time, indispensable to the Court. The exactions of the King, in order to satisfy his minions, were met with resistance, especially in the more Catholic provinces, where the dissatisfaction was fomented by the Guises; and Henry was obliged to purchase from that influential family a sort of tacit truce, by according to them pecuniary favours. In February 1579; a secret treaty was signed at Nérac, by which the concessions. granted to the Protestants by the peace of Bergerac were much extended. In these negociations Catherine affected a scriptural language, similar to that used by the Calvinist ministers; which the ladies of the Court called "the language of Canaan," and studied it over-night in the chamber of the Queen-mother amid bursts of laughter, Mademoiselle Atri, one of Catherine's "flying squadron," being the chief preceptor. Catherine spent nearly the whole of the year 1579 in the south, endeavouring to avert a renewal of the war by her intrigues, rather than by a faithful observance of the peace. But the King of Navarre saw through her Italian artifices, and was prepared to summon his friends and captains at the shortest notice. The hostilities which he foresaw were not long in breaking out, and in a way that would seem impossible in any other country than France. When the King of Navarre fled from Court in 1576, he expressed his indifference for two things he had left behind, the mass and his wife; Margaret, the heroine of a thousand amours, was equally indifferent, and though they now contrived to cohabit together, it was because each connived at the infidelities of the other. Henry was in love with Mademoiselle Fosseuse, a girl of 284 THE LOVERS' WAR. [Book III. fourteen, while Margaret had taken for her gallant the young Viscount of Turenne, who had lately turned Hugonot, and was an important acquisition to that party both by his personal qualities and his vast estates. The Duke of Anjou being at this time disposed to renew his connection with the Hugonots, Margaret served as the medium of communication between her brother and her husband; while Henry III. with a view to interrupt this good understanding, wrote to the King of Navarre to acquaint him of the intrigues of his wife with Turenne. Henry was neither surprised nor afflicted at this intelligence; but he laid the letter before the guilty parties, who both denied the charge, and Henry affected to believe their protestations. The ladies of the Court of Nérac were indignant at this act of Henry III., "the enemy of women;" they pressed their lovers to renew hostilities against that discourteous monarch; Anjou added his instances to those of the ladies; and in 1580 ensued the war called from its origin la guerre des amoureux, or war of the lovers: the seventh of what are sometimes styled the wars of religion! The Prince of Condé, who lived on bad terms with his cousin, had already taken the field on his own. account, and in November 1579 had seized on the little town of La Fère in Picardy. In the spring of 1580 the Protestant chiefs in the south unfurled their banners. The King of Navarre laid the foundation of his military fame by the bravery he displayed at the capture of Cahors; but on the whole the movement proved a failure. Henry III. had no fewer than three armies in the field, which were generally victorious, and the King of Navarre found himself menaced in his capital of Nérac by Marshal Biron. But Henry III., for fear of the Guises, did not wish to press the Hugonots too hard, and at length accepted the proffered mediation of the Duke of Anjou, who was at this time anxious to enter on the protectorate offered to him by the Flemings.15 Anjou set off for the south, accompanied by his mother and her flying squadron; conferences were opened at the castle of Fleix in Périgord, and on November 26th 1580 a treaty was concluded which was almost a literal renewal of that of Bergerac. Thus an equivocal peace, or rather truce, was re-established, which proved of some duration. At this period the conquest of Portugal by Philip II., by adding a new force to that already almost irresistible power, diverted for a time the attention of the French from their own domestic troubles to the affairs of Spain, and revived in them all that ancient jealousy of the House of Austria, which seemed to have slumbered, 15 See next chapter. CHAP. VIII.] AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL. 295 while they were invoking the aid of Philip in support of bigotry and faction. It was during the reign of Emmanuel I., or the Great, as we have already seen, that Portugal laid the foundation of its greatness, by its conquests in Asia, Africa and America. Emmanuel was succeeded by John III. who reigned from 1521 to 1557. Under this king Portugal attained its highest pitch of commercial prosperity, and Japan was added to the countries with which it traded in the east (1542). The seeds of its decline were, however, already sown, and partly by the policy of John himself. That monarch had shown much favour to the Jesuits before they were regularly established, and had invited two of Loyola's first companions and apostles, Simon Rodriguez and Francis Xavier, into Portugal. Xavier repaired to the East Indies and to Japan as a missionary, and assisted to spread Christianity and civilisation. But the footing which this sect obtained in Portugal, and the fanaticism which they necessarily introduced, gave a fatal blow to the prosperity of the country where, under John's successors, the persecution of the Inquisition became stricter and more intolerant than in Spain. The authority of the Jesuits increased during the long minority of King Sebastian who, at the death of his grandfather John III., was a child only three years old. His bigoted grandmother Catherine, a sister of Charles V., to whom devolved his guardianship and the care of his education, placed him under the direction. of the Jesuits; and when, in 1561, Catherine retired into a convent, the same plan was pursued by his new guardian, Cardinal Henry, a brother of John III., and Archbishop of Braga, Evora, and Lisbon, and also Grand-Inquisitor of Portugal. Cardinal Henry was entirely a churchman. In his view the material prosperity of the kingdom was but as dust in the balance when compared with the interests of the Church; and instead therefore of intrusting the education of Sebastian to statesmen and men of the world, he placed him under two Jesuits, Don Alexis de Menezes, who acted as his chamberlain, and Don Louis de Camara, as his teacher and confessor. By these men the mind of Sebastian was filled with romantic and fantastical views of religion. The Pope and his glory formed the chief object of his contemplation; he dreamt of nothing but acquiring the crown of Christian Knighthood by crusades against the Moslems, and of reducing the East and West under the cross of Christ and the victorious banner of Portugal. This martial and religious ardour found, however, an opportunity to exert itself nearer home. In 1574 Sebastian undertook an expedition into Africa, where for some time he waged with the 286 FATAL EXPEDITION OF KING SEBASTIAN. [Воок ІІІ. Moors an undecisive war; which a few years after he was tempted to renew, to his own destruction and the downfall of his kingdom. Muley Mohammed, Sultan of Morocco, by altering the law of succession, and appointing that the crown should devolve, on the death of the reigning sovereign, to his eldest brother instead of to his son, had filled that empire with civil tumult, conspiracy and murder. Muley's son, Abdallah, in spite of his father's law, had contrived to seize and retain the sceptre; and in order to transmit it to his son, Muley Mohammed, he murdered all his brothers except two; of whom one had escaped to Constantinople, and the other, Muley Hamet, on account of his seemingly harmless character, was suffered to live. On the death of Abdallah, his son, Muley Mohammed, also put his brothers to death, and attempted to seize his uncle, Muley Hamet, who, however, escaped to Constantinople; and returning in 1575 with a Turkish force defeated his nephew in two battles and seized the throne. Muley Mohammed now sought foreign assistance; first from Philip II., by whom it was refused, and then from Sebastian. The prospect thus opened to that adventurous and fanatical monarch of subduing Africa and opposing the Osmanlis proved irresistible. It was in vain that his grandfather's counsellors, as well as his grandmother Catherine, and Cardinal Henry dissuaded him from so wild a project; he had determined to venture his whole kingdom on the enterprise, and he applied to the King of Spain his maternal uncle to assist him in it. At an interview which he had with Philip II., at the shrine of the Virgin at Guadalupe, that monarch, as well as the Duke of Alva, also counselled Sebastian to abandon the undertaking; but finding his nephew's resolution unalterable, Philip at length promised to support him with 50 galleys and 5000 men. Sebastian sailed from Tangiers, the residence of Muley Mohammed, June 24th 1578, with an army consisting of Portuguese, Castilians and Germans, and a large body of volunteers, including most of the Portuguese nobility and many prelates. Among his forces was a body of 600 Italians, commanded by Thomas Stukely, an Englishman, who had been destined by the Pope for an expedition against England. The point of attack was El Arish, or Larache, which might easily have been reached by sea. Sebastian, however, preferred to march through the sandy desert of Alcassirquivir, where he was encountered by 40,000 Moorish cavalry. A battle ensued at Alcassir, at the distance of three or four days' march from El Arish, in which Sebastian was defeated and slain, and his whole army nearly annihilated. The French |