He was in a great minority throughout the country as well as the army, and he would have to deal with public passions, worked by his foes for their own ends, and with the personal pretensions of his partisans.

He made no mistake about these two facts, and he allowed them great weight; but he did not take for the ruling principle of his policy and for his first rule of conduct the plan of alternate concessions to the different parties and of continually humoring personal interests; he set his thoughts higher, upon the general and natural interests of France as he found her and saw her.

They resolved themselves, in his eyes, into the following great points: maintenance of the hereditary rights of monarchy, preponderance of Catholics in the government, peace between Catholics and Protestants, and religious liberty for Protestants.

With him these points became the law of his policy and his kingly duty, as well as the nation's right.

He proclaimed them in the first words that he addressed to the lords and principal personages of state assembled around him.
"You all know," said he, "what orders the late king my predecessor gave me, and what he enjoined upon me with his dying breath.