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HENRY IV. KING OF FRANCE.

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Huguenots into fatal security. The perfidious || ing eminences of kingly life, the flowers of sym-
Catharine only sought to throw them off their
guard, that with the dagger of assassination she
might accomplish that which she had in vain at-
tempted upon the field of battle.

The young Prince of Navarre now returned to his hereditary domain, and visited its various provinces, where he was received with the most lively demonstrations of affection. Various circumstances, however, indicated to the Protestant leaders, that some mysterious plot was forming for their overthrow. Henry returned, with his mother, to Rochelle, where, surrounded by their own political and religious friends, they passed the winter; scrupulously requiting the courtesies of Catharine, yet looking with a suspicious eye upon her adulation and her fawning sycophancy. The young king of France, Charles IX., who was of about the same age with Henry, and who had been his companion in childhood, was now married to Elizabeth, the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II., of Austria. Their nuptials were celebrated with all the ostentatious pomp which the luxury of the times and the opulence of the French monarchy could furnish. In these rejoicings the courts of France and Navarre participated, with the semblance of the most heartfelt cordiality. Protestants and Catholics, pretending to forget that they had recently encountered each other with fiend-like fury on fields of blood, mingled gaily in these festivities, and vied with each other in the exchange of courtly greetings and polished flatteries. Catharine and her son lavished, with the utmost profusion, their commendations and attentions upon the young prince, and left no arts of dissimulation unessayed which might disarm the fears and win the confidence of their victim.

The queen mother, with caressing fondness, declared that Henry must be her son. She would confer upon him Marguerite, her youngest daughter, a princess beautiful in the extreme; highly accomplished in all those graces which can kindle the fires and feed the flames of love, but also as unprincipled as any male libertine who contaminated, by his presence, a court whose very atmosphere was corruption. Many of royal blood had most earnestly sought the hand of the princess; for an alliance with the royal family of France, was an honor which the proudest sovereigns might covet. Such a connection, in its political aspects, was everything which Henry could desire. It was another step towards power, and towards the throne of France. It was another safeguard for the interests of the Protestant religion. A royal marriage is ordinarily but a matter of state policy. Upon the cold, icy, glitter

pathy and affection rarely bloom. Henry, without hesitation, acquiesced in the expediency of this nuptial union. He regarded it as most manifestly a politic partnership, and he did not concern himself at all about the agreeable or disagreeable qualities of his contemplated spouse, for he had no idea of making her his companion; she was merely his wife. The mother of Henry, however, a woman of sincere piety, and in whose bosom all noble thoughts were nurtured, cherished many misgivings. Her Protestant principles caused her to shrink from the espousal of her son with a Roman Catholic. Her religious scruples and the spotless purity of her character, aroused the most lively emotions of repugnance, in view of his connection with one who had not even the modesty to conceal her vices. State considerations, however, finally prevailed, and Jeanne waved her objections.

The young princess Marguerite, proud and petulant, received the cold addresses of Henry with still more chilling indifference. She refused to make even the slightest concessions to his religious views; and though she made no objection to the profitable partnership, she ostentatiously displayed a perfect disregard for Henry and for his friends. She was piqued by the reluctance which Jeanne had manifested to an alliance which the proud girl thought should have been regarded as the highest of earthly honors. Arrangements were made for the marriage ceremo nies, which were to be performed with the ut most splendor, in the French capital. The most distinguished gentlemen of the Protestant party, from all parts of the realm were invited to add lustre to the festivities by their presence. Many, however, of the wisest counsellors of the Queen of Navarre, fearing some deep-laid plot, remonstrated, and presaged that "if the wedding were celebrated in Paris, the liveries would be very

crimson."

Jeanne, solicited by the most pressing invitations from Catharine and her son, and urged by her courtiers, who were eager to share the renowned pleasures of the French metropolis, proceeded to Paris. She had hardly entered her lodgings when she was seized with a violent fever, which raged in her veins nine days, and then she died. Catharine displayed the most ostentatious and extravagant grief. Charles gave utterance to loud and poignant lamentations, and or dered a surgeon to examine the body, that the cause of her death might be ascertained. Notwithstanding these efforts to disarm suspicion, the report spread like wildfire through all the Protestant countries of Europe that the queen had

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HENRY IV. KING OF FRANCE.

been perfidiously poisoned by Catharine. The Protestant writers of the time assert, that she fell a victim to poison communicated by a pair of perfumed gloves. The Catholics as confidently affirm that she died of a natural disease. The truth can now never be known till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed at the judgment-day.

The Prince of Bearn was slowly travelling towards Paris, unconscious of his mother's sickness, when the unexpected tidings arrived of her death. It is difficult to imagine what must have been the precise nature of the emotions of an ambitious young man who passionately loved both his mother and the crown which she wore, as by the loss of the one he gained the other. His grief was gilded by joy. His joy was darkened by grief. Henry immediately assumed the title and the style of the King of Navarre, and honored the memory of his mother with every manifestation of regret and veneration. This melancholy event caused the postponement of the marriage ceremony for a short time, as it was not deemed decorous that epithalamiums and requiems should be chanted in the same hour; the tolling knell would not blend harmoniously with the joyous peals of the marriage bell. Henry was in no haste for the wedding, for there was little to attract him in the demeanor of his haughty, heartless bride. And Marguerite indulged in all the wayward humors of a worse than spoiled child, by the studious display to her betrothed of the most contemptuous neglect. At length the nuptial day arrived. It was the 15th day of August, 1572. Paris had laid aside its mourning weeds, and a gay and brilliant carnival succeeded its dismal days of gloom. Protestants and Catholics of highest note, from all parts of Europe, mingled with the glittering throng, all interchanging smiles and congratulations. The unimpassioned bridegroom led his scornful bride to the church of Notre Dame. Before the great gateway of this renowned edifice, under the shadow of its venerable towers, a magnificent platform had been reared, canopied with the most gorgeous tapestry. Tens of thousands thronged the 'surrounding amphitheatre, to witness the imposing ceremony. There, in the presence of all the highest nobility of France, and of illustrious representatives from all the courts of Europe, Henry received the hand of the princess, and the nuptial oath was administered. Marguerite however, even in that hour, and in the presence of all those spectators, gave a ludicrous exhibition of her ungoverned wilfulness and her girlish petulance. When asked if she willingly received Henry of Bourbon for her husband, she pouted, and was silent. The question was repeated, but her

spirit was now up, and she remained immovable in her sullen refusal to give any assent. Embarrassment and delay ensued. The royal brother of the princess, Charles IX., coolly walked up to the untamed shrew, and placing his hand upon her head forcibly bent it down. This involuntary nod was received as her assent. Such was a royal wedding. Such were the vows by which Henry and Marguerite were united.

The Catholic wife, unaccompanied by her husband, who waited at the door with his Protestant retinue, now entered the church to participate in the solemnities of the mass. The young king of Navarre then submissively received his bride and conducted her to a very magnificent dinner, which had been prepared for the whole court. Balls, illuminations and pageants of every kind ensued in the evening. For many days these unnatural and chilling nuptials were celebrated with all the splendor of national festivities. Among these entertainments there was a tournament, singularly characteristic of the times, and which certainly sheds singular lustre either upon the humility or the good nature of the Protestants.

A large area was prepared for the display of one of those barbaric passes of arms so characteristic of that period. The enclosure was surrounded by all the chivalry and beauty of France. Charles IX., with his two brothers and several of the Catholic nobility, then appeared upon one side of the arena on noble war horses gorgeously caparisoned, and threw down the gauntlet of defiance to Henry of Navarre, and his retinue of Protestant noblemen, who, similarly mounted and accoutred, awaited the challenge upon the opposite side. The portion of the enclosure in which the Catholics appeared, was decorated to represent Heaven. The Protestants in the opposite extreme were seen emerging from the desolation, the gloom, and the sulphurous canopy of Hell. The two parties, from their antagonistic realms, rushed to the encounter, the fiends of darkness battling with the angels of light. Gradually the Catholics, in accordance with previous arrangements, drove back the Protestants towards their grim abodes, when suddenly numerous demons appeared rushing from the infernal regions, who, with cloven hoofs, and weapons, and chains forged in penal fires, seized upon the Protestants and dragged them back to the dungeons from whence they had emergedPlaudits loud and long greeted this victory of the combined powers of darkness and light; when suddenly a winged Cupid appeared, the representative of the pious and amiable Marguerite, to rescue the Protestants from their doom.

Fear

ON RECEIVING THE TIDINGS OF MY MOTHER'S DEATH·

lessly this emissary of love penetrated the realms of despair. At his presence even the demons fled trembling. The Protestants, by this agency,

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were liberated from their thraldom, and conduct-
ed in triumph to the elysium of the Catholics.
(To be continued.)

ON RECEIVING THE TIDINGS OF MY MOTHER'S DEATH.

AND all is over now! my mother's gone!

Her worn-out frame hath sunk to rest at last;
My father, now a widower, sits alone-

And o'er my childhood's home a shroud is cast.
How crowds my soul with early memories,
And re-enacts the scenes of by-gone days!
I see her face and form before me rise,
I walk with her in old familiar ways,

And join with her again in acts of prayer and praise.
I see thee, mother! as at reason's birth,

The guardian angel of my infancy;

When thou didst mingle in our childish mirth,
And romped with us with very boyish glee !
And then, anon! I see thine eye upraised,

Teaching our youthful spirits to ascend

To Him who by the hosts of heaven is praised,
And taught our infant minds to comprehend
How God, to save poor sinners, did from heaven descend.

I hear thy voice, as it to us detailed

The life of Abel, Joseph, Moses, Ruth;

How Jacob, wrestling with the Lord, prevailed,
How God called Samuel in his early youth:

I hear that voice, as when with thee I knelt,
And thou, on my behalf, didst offer prayer,
As thus thy trembling voice did whispering melt-
"Oh! save my son from every youthful snare,
And early, for Thy service, his young heart prepare."

But all is over now! thy spirit's fire

Its tenement of dust at last consumed;

That voice now mingles with the heavenly choir

Thou hast the diadem and robe assumed;

But may the memory of thy upward flight,

While clogged and fettered by the body's clay,

Now nerve my spirit for the Christian fight,

That thus thy life and death, thy prayers and precepts may

"Allure to brighter worlds," as thou hast led the way!

Then farewell, mother! I will wipe each tear,
And stop the current of unseemly grief;
That God who took thee from thy sufferings here
Doth soothe my spirit with this sure belief-
That short, at longest, is this mortal strife,
That earth is but the portal of the skies,
That soon we all shall meet in endless life,
Forever reunite those severed ties-

And then our hymn of praise shall loud and louder rise!

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3. And yet I feel that I must go-the bitter hour has come :
Soon, soon you'll lay this body low in its cold, quiet home;
The grass will grow upon the turf, and autumn breezes sigh,
And snow will fall upon the earth, 'neath which my ashes lie.

4. But you'll not tarry long, beloved; O, say you soon will come,
And share with me a glorious, an everlasting home:
Death loses half its terrors, love, when such sweet hopes are given;
And maybe I will wait for thee just at the gate of heaven.

5. Now kiss me once again, beloved-one kiss, and then farewell!
"Tis hard to speak the fatal word, how hard I cannot tell;
We'll meet ere long, to part no more-God grant it soon may be !
For heaven itself would lose its charms, unless 'twere shared by thee

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