Manicur, John Henry

HENRI QUATRE;

OR,

THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE.

Geo Payne Rainsford James

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WHITTAKER & Co.

AVE MARIA LANE.

LONDON:

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,

ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.

HENRI QUATRE;

OR,

THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE.

CHAPTER I.

Farewell to thy fountains, farewell to thy shades,
To the song of thy youth, and the dance of thy maids,
To the breath of thy gardens, the hum of thy bees,
And the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees.

Huguenot Song.

OUR story opens in the old palace of the Louvre, during the sway of Catherine de Medicis, whose feeble son, Henry of Valois, was content to pass away his hours in alternate fits of superstitious devotion and debauchery; while his politic mother grasped the reins of government with a steady, unflinching hand. But though the splendour in which Catherine delighted to enshrine her court,