CHIS is the most celebrated of all the battles of Henry IV. of France. It gave a death-blow to the power of the League, and made the king really, as well as nominally, monarch of France. The two armies came in presence on the evening of the 13th of March. Both encamped on the plain of Ivry, destined, on the morrow, to be the field of battle. The leaguers amounted to sixteen thousand; the royalists were far inferior in number. On the eve of action, De Schomberg, the general of the German auxiliaries, was pressed by his troops to ask Henry for their pay. The king, destitute of funds, was irritated at the request. "A man of

courage," he replied, "would not have asked for money on the eve of battle." The next morning, while preparing for action, Henry perceived the general, and thus accosted him: Schomberg, I have insulted you, and as this day may be the last of my life, I would not carry away the honour of a gentleman, and be unable to restore it. I know your valour, and ask your pardon: embrace me." "Your majesty wounded me yesterday-you kill me to-day," replied the veteran, overcome; and he spoke truth, for he perished in the battle.

The king was most in dread of the Spanish lances. His own cavalry, composed of gentlemen volunteers, had long since rejected the lance as troublesome, and fought with sword and pistol. Henry, therefore divided them into small squadrons, that if one was broken, it might rally to the others; and he thus favoured this mode of fighting, which was rather the ordering of combats man to man, than the manoeuvring and shock of masses. Cavalry and infantry were mingled, regiment supported regiment, and Biron commanded a corps of reserve. After a prayer, in which Henry joined, he addressed his officers ere he gave the signal, desiring, that if they should be obliged to quit the field, they would rally towards three trees, which he pointed out on the right; “and if astray," added he, "follow my white plume: you will find it ever on the road to honour and to victory."

There was little order in the action: on one wing the Germans of the league behaved ill and yielded; on the other the royalists were beaten, but Biron rallied them with reinforcements. The combat was decided by the central force of either army; the count d'Egmont leading the Spaniards, and Mayenne the gentlemen of his party, against the king. The leaguers were marshalled too closely together. Henry's squadron got among them, and a sanguinary melee ensued. The king was reported to be killed, but soon showed his white plume in the path that he had promised. Egmont was slain. The standard-bearer of Mayenne fell by Henry's own hand and the army of the leaguers was routed and driven

from the ground. Biron had overlooked the fight, reinforced weak points, and rallied fugitives, whilst the monarch himself fought. "Sire," said Biron, after the action, "we changed places: you did Biron's duty: Biron yours." Sully, the friend of Henry, was found disabled by a number of wounds on the field of battle.

The victory of Ivry enabled the king to reduce all the small towns around Paris, and finally to invest the capital.

H

ENRY IV. profited from the restoration of peace to occupy himself with effecting many reforms that were wanted. He repressed robbery by establishing armed stations; he diminished the number of his troops, and remitted all the arrears of taxes, which were thenceforth to be collected in a more equitable manner. He sent the nobles to live on their estates, who had formed his court by their manners, and who had ruined themselves by their expensive follies. He set them an example of simplicity, for he went ordinarily dressed in gray cloth, with a doublet of satin or of taffeta, without embroidery, and smiled satirically at those who dressed magnificently, and who might therefore be said to have "carried their mills, and their woods, and their lofty trees, all on their backs."

He also occupied himself in reforming the finances of the state. He had a register made out for his household, one for the marine, one for the artillery, one of the emoluments of the officers of justice and the revenue, and one of the taxes collected in each province; and these he caused to be brought constantly under his observation. After the death of Francis

d'O, 1594, Henry had confided the management of the finances to a council of eight magistrates, who had administered them with negligence. Sully, called to his council in 1596, was created sole superintendent. A man of order and great arrangement, without prodigality and pomp, vigilant, laborious, expeditious, Sully gave up all his time to public business, and discovered the bad faith of the financiers, and detected and checked their depredations. He commenced by visiting four general collections; and within a short period, he caused to be restored to the public coffers four millions and a half. He immediately found the necessary funds to equip a large army, and to bear the expence of a new siege of Amiens. He ordered the under farmers of the revenue to make no more payments to the farmers general, but to send what they had collected immediately to the treasury. By these means he doubled the king's revenue. Such sweeping reforms raised up against him a crowd of enemies; but they afforded general relief to the nation, and he triumphed over all the resentment of the disaffected.

The deranged finances were not the only evil in the kingdom. Henry IV., compelled to satisfy the ambition of so many, and to purchase numerous submissions, had given benefices away to soldiers, to children, and to women. The general assembly of the clergy, held at Paris towards the end of 1598, addressed a remonstrance to the king, calling for a reform of abuses. The king promised to effect such a reform; but he expressed a hope that the clergy would assist his efforts by setting a good example. "You have exhorted me to do my duty," said he; "I call upon you to fulfil yours. We shall do well in this good work to rival one another. My predecessors have given you fine words; but I, with my gray jacket, wish to give you good deeds. I am all gray without, but I trust that I am all gold within."