and the court of Rome, the partisans, much more numerous, of the French League, who desired peace, and were ready to accept Henry IV., provided that he turned Catholic, and a small band of political spirits, more powerful in talent than number.
Regularly as the deputies arrived, Mayenne went to each of them, saying privately, "Gentlemen, you see what the question is; it is the very chiefest of all matters (_res maxima rerum agitur_).

I beg you to give your best attention to it, and to so act that the adversaries steal no march on us and get no advantage over us.

Nevertheless, I mean to abide by what I have promised them." Mayenne was quite right: it was certainly the chiefest of all matters.

The head of the Protestants of France, the ally of all the Protestants in Europe--should he become a Catholic and King of France?
The temporal head of Catholic Europe, the King of Spain -- should he abolish the Salic law in France, by placing upon it his daughter as queen, and dismember France to his own profit and that of the leaders of the League, his hirelings rather than his allies?
Or, peradventure, should one of these Leaguer-chiefs be he who should take the crown of France, and found a new dynasty there?
And which of these Leaguer-chiefs should attain this good fortune?
A half-German or a true Frenchman?
A Lorraine prince or a Bourbon?
And, if a Lorraine prince, which?
The Duke of Mayenne, military head of the League, or his uterine brother, the Duke of Nemours, or his nephew the young Duke of Guise, son of the Balafrc?
All these questions were mooted, all these pretensions were on the cards, all these combinations had their special intrigue.
And in the competition upon which they entered with one another, at the same time that they were incessantly laying traps for one another, they kept up towards one another, because of the uncertainty of their chances, a deceptive course of conduct often amounting to acts of downright treachery committed without scruple, in order to preserve for themselves a place and share in the unknown future towards which they were moving.
It was in order to have his opinion upon a position so dark and complicated, and upon the behavior it required, that Henry IV., then at Mantes, sent once more for Rosny, and had a second conversation, a few weeks later, with him.
"Well! my friend," said the king, "what say you about all these plots that are being projected against my conscience, my life, and my kingdom?
Since the death of the Duke of Parma [on the 2d of December, 1592, in the Abbey of St.Waast at Arras, from the consequences of a wound received in the preceding April at the siege of Caudebec], it seems that deeds of arms have given place to intrigues and contests of words.

I fancy that such gentry will never leave me at rest, and will at last, perhaps, attempt my liberty and my life.