heard not a word on the subject.

Philip II.
persisted in his active hostility, and continued to give the King of France no title but that of Prince of Bearn.

On the 17th of January, 1595, Henry, in performance of what he had proclaimed, formally declared war against the King of Spain, forbade his subjects to have any com merce with him or his allies, and ordered them to make war on him for the future just as he persisted in making it on France.

This able and worthy resolve was not approved of by Rosny, by this time the foremost of Henry's IV.'s councillors, although he had not yet risen in the government, or, probably, in the king's private confidence, to the superior rank that he did attain by the eminence of his services and the courageous sincerity of his devotion.

In his _OEconomies royales_ it is to interested influence, on the part of England and Holland, that he attributes this declaration of war against Philip II., "into which," he says, "the king allowed himself to be hurried against his own feelings." It was assuredly in accordance with his own feelings and of his own free will that Henry acted in this important decision; he had a political order of mind greater, more inventive, and more sagacious than Rosny's administrative order of mind, strong common sense and painstaking financial abilities.