After Henry III.'s death, as soon as he heard that Henry IV.
promised to have himself instructed in the Catholic religion, he announced his intention of recognizing him if he held to this engagement; and he held to his own, for he was during five years the intermediary between Henry IV.

and Mayenne, incessantly laboring to reconcile them, and to prevent the estates of the League from giving the crown of France to a Spanish princess.

Villeroi was a Leaguer of the patriotically French type.

And so Henry IV., as soon as he was firm upon his throne, summoned him to his councils, and confided to him the direction of foreign affairs.

The late Leaguer sat beside Sully, and exerted himself to give the prevalence, in Henry IV.'s external policy, to Catholic maxims and alliances, whilst Sully, remaining firmly Protestant in the service of his king turned Catholic, continued to be in foreign matters the champion of Protestant policy and alliances.