VII.] THE RELIGIOUS WARS. 113 night of St. Bartholomew, the unhappy Charles died in his twenty-fifth year, on the 30th of May, 1574. 9. Fl'ght of the Princes to the Huguenots, 1576. — Henry III. was delighted to leave Poland. The wild, fierce, tumultuous nobility, and the small amount of power allowed to an elective king, did not suit him. On the news of his brother's death he rode off by night, and was pursued like a felon by his Polish subjects ; yet he loitered on the way home, first at Venice and then in Lorraine, where he fell in love with a niece of Guise, Louise of Vaudemoiit, whom he made his queen. He was a strange character. All the spirit he had shown as a lad seemed to have been worn out before he was five-and-twenty, and, though he was not devoid of personal courage, his whole reign was a course of vacillation, while in deceit and treachery he was his mother's best pupil. The debauchery of his court was such that it was said that it was only by their steeples that the Parisians were known to be Chris- tians. Yet this debauchery alternated with extravagant penances and devotions, when the king and all his court went in sackcloth, barefooted, and scourging one another. Henry withal was a wonderful fop, using washes for his complexion, and sleeping in gloves to preserve the beauty of his hands. His court consisted of young men, whom the nation called his migjions, and whom he fondled and pampered till they became inordinately proud and vain. Yet they were brave in battle, and they had moreover fierce quarrels and duels among themselves. Never was there a more horrid mixture of foppery, treachery, and barbarity than in these days, when it was esteemed a graceful accomplishment so to give a mortal wound that the blood might spout forth like a fountain. The first person to break from this abominable court was the Prince of Condd, a grave, stern man, who at once returned to Calvinism, and took the lead of the Huguenots. Montmorency, though a Catholic, joined him, hoping in this weakness of the crown to restore the power of the nobility, and the Duke of Alengon escaped to their camp, where he was received with joy which he little deserved. He was a small, ugly, ape-like being, spiteful and per- fidious, and he hoped to force his brother to give him some large appanage by going over to the enemy. These tidings at last awoke the spirit of the King of Navarre, who, after four years of sluggishness at the court, broke I
