Henri IV.

assumed this character, but it was _after_ victory; had he attempted it _before_ Ivry, he would have lost, not only the kingdom of France, but also of Navarre.
The court was venal, selfish, corrupt; it only defended in the king's person the sources of its vanities,--profitable exactions.

The clergy, with Christian virtues, had no public virtues: a state within a state, its life was apart from the life of the nation, its ecclesiastical establishment seemed to be wholly independent of the monarchical establishment.

It had only rallied round the monarchy, on the day it had beheld its own fortune compromised; and then it had appealed to the faith of the people, in order to preserve its wealth; but the people now only saw in the monks mendicants, and in the bishops extortioners.

The nobility, effeminate by lengthened peace, emigrated in masses, abandoning their king to his besetting perils, and fully trusting in the prompt and decisive intervention of foreign powers.