I20 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. clergy. After a five hourb' discussion he doclared himself convinced, and on the 23rd of July, 1592, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and heard mass at St. Denys. This gained him hearty support from all loyal Catholics, and made many desert the League. City after city yielded to him, and he was crowned at Chartres on the 17th of February, 1594. Paris was weary of the war, and offered to admit him. He promised all that was asked, and when he made his entry on the 22nd of March, 1594, there were such shouts of welcome, and such an appearance of relief, that he said, " These poor people must have been well tyrannized over." He would not have them kept from thronging him, for, as he said, " They are hungry to see a king." He pardoned every- body, even Madame de Montpensier. But all the most desperate Leaguers had quitted the city and joined Mayenne. Henry was still under the ban of the pope, but the League only lingered on by Spanish support, and the small remnant was more desperate than ever. On the 27th of December, 1 592, Henry's life was attempted by a man who had been bred up by the Jesuits, and this sealed their sentence of banishment. But a new pope, Clement VIII.^ resolved to return to the old Roman policy of balancing France against Spain. He therefore consented to absolve Henry on condition that the Council of Trent should be acknowledged in France, and that the heir of the crown, the young son of the lately deceased Prince of Condtf, should be bred up as a Catholic. Then in 1595, under the portico of St. Peter's at Rome, the pope first declared the former absolution at St. Denys null and void, and then formally pronounced Henry to be absolved, and within the bosom of the Church. Still the League and the Spaniards continued the war, and at Fontaine Frangaise a skirmish became a battle, in which Henry said he fought not for victory, but for existence ; but he gained a complete victory ; the Spaniards fell back on the Netherlands, and Mayenne was driven to make peace and extinguish the League, which had so perilously overshadowed the throne for eighteen years. Henry might well say that then for the first time he was a king indeed. But even then his seat was troubled by the dissensions of the diflferent parties in the nation. There was a loyal, peace-loving, part of the nation which rejoiced to rest after forty years of savage civil war. There was also a Huguenot party, which
