THE HENRIAD. FROM THE FRENCH OF VOLTAIRE. By Rev. C. F. LeFern. To the readers of the "Ladies' Repository" who may be unacquainted with the French language, this version in English of "Voltaire's Henriad" is respectfully dedicated by the translator. PLAN OF THE HENRIAD. The subject of the Henriad is the siege of Paris, begun by Henry of Valois and Henry the Great, and terminated by the latter alone. The scene lies between Paris and Ivry, where that celebrated battle took place which decided the fate of France, and of the royal house. The poem is founded on well-known history, in which the truth of the principal events is observed. Others, less important, have been curtailed or altered according to the probability that a poem requires. The fault of Lucan has been avoided, whose poem was little else than a high-flown gazette. Nothing more has been done in this respect than what occurs in all tragedies, where the events are conformed to the rules of the theatre. For the rest, the poem is no more historical than any other. Camoens, who is the Virgil of the Portuguese, has celebrated an event to which he had himself been a witness. Tasso sung a crusade known to every one, and did not omit Peter the Hermit nor religious processions. Virgil constructed his Æneid on fables current in his day, and which were looked upon as a true history of the descent of Eneas into Italy. Homer, contemporary with Herod, and who consequently lived a hundred years after the siege of Troy, might have easily seen in his youth old men who had known the herocs of this war. What is still more pleasing in Homer is that the groundwork of his poem is not a romance, that the characters are not imaginary, that he has represented men as they were, with their good and bad qualities, and that his book is a monument of those distant times. The Henriad is composed of two parts, - of actual events which are recorded and of fictions. These fictions are all drawn from the system of the marvellous, such as the prediction of the conversion of Henry IV, the protection he receives from St. Louis, his apparition, the fire from heaven destroying the magical operThe rest are ations then so common. purely allegorical of this number is the journey of Discord to Rome; policy, fanaticism, all personifications, the temple of love, - in short, the passions and vices assuming a body, soul, spirit, and form. If these personified passions have received the same attributes that the pagans gave them, the reason is that these allegorical attributes are too well known to be changed. Love has his arrows, Justice her scales in most Christian works, in our paintings, in our tapestries, without the least tincture of paganism. The word Amphitrite in our poem signifies simply the sea, and not the wife of Neptune. The field of Mars is simply war. Having given an outline of the work, it may be proper to speak of the spirit in which it is written. It has been the desire of the author neither to flatter nor to slander. Those who see here the bad actions of their ancestors may repair them by their own virtues. Those whose ancestors are spoken of with praise owe no gratitude to the author, whose only object has been the truth; and the only use they should make of these praises is to deserve themselves similar ones. If in this edition some verses have been omitted which contained hard truths against the popes who had dishonored the papal chair in times past by their crimes, it was not so much to affront the court of Rome as to suppose it would respect the memory of these wicked pontiffs. The French, who condemn the crimes of Louis XI. and Catharine de Medicis, may certainly speak with horror of Alexander VI. But the author has abridged these parts because they were too long, and contained verses that did not please him. It is with this view only that he has put many other names in the place of those found in the first edition, as he found them better suited to his subject, or that the names themselves sounded better. The only policy in a poem is to make good verses. The death of young Bougglers, supposed to have been killed by Henry IV., has been left out, because the death of this young man seemed to render Henry IV. little odious without rendering him greater. Duplessis Moornay is sent to England to Queen Elizabeth, because he was actually sent there, and his negotiation is still remembered. He is prominent in the remainder of the poem because, being the king's confidant in the first canto, it would have been ridiculous to put others in his place in the following ones, as it would have been in tragedy (in Berenice, for example) for Titus to have confided in Pauline in the first act, and in another in the fifth. If people will put ill-natured constructions on these changes, it need not trouble the author. He knows that all authors must expect malicious remarks. The most important is religion, which enters largely in the subject of the poem, and is its only development. The author flatters himself that in many places he has expressed himself with vigorous precision which can afford no handle for censure. Such are the lines on the TRINITY :: "Power, wisdom, and love in harmony join, And, united or single, make the essence divine." And in the following: "He sees that the church, which the world here Extends over all, while as ONE it exists; are fel." If everywhere this theological exactness has not been observed, the reasonable reader will supply the want. It would be very unjust to examine every word in a theological thesis. This poem is written in the spirit of religion and the laws. Rebellion and persecution are equally detested. A book written in such a spirit must not be judged by a word. Francis II., had spread over France in the minority of Charles IX. Religion among the people was the cause; among the great, it was the pretext. The queen mother, Catharine de Medicis, had more than once hazarded the safety of the kingdom to preserve her authority, arming the Catholic against the Protestant, and the Guises against the Bourbons, that they might destroy each other. France had then, unfortunately, many seignors too powerful and, consequently, too factious; a populace become fanatical and barbarous by that fury which false zeal inspires; and kings in their minority in whose name the state was laid waste. The battles of Dreux, St. Denis, Jarnac, Montcontour had signalized the unhappy reign of Charles IX.; the chief cities were taken, retaken, and sacked by turns by the opposite parties; the prisoners of war were put to death by the most refined cruelty: the churches were burnt by the Reformers; the temples by the Catholics; poisoning and assassination were looked upon as the natural revenge of an adroit enemy. The day of the St. Bartholemew Massacre crowned all these horrors. Henry the Great, then king of Navarre, very young and chief of the reformed party, among whom he was born, was enticed to the court together with the most powerful nobles of that party. He was given in marriage to the Princess Margaret, sister of Charles IX. It was in the midst of the rejoicings of this marriage, during a profound peace, and after the most solemn oaths, that Catharine de Medicis ordered the massacre, the memory of which must be perpetuated (frightful and withering as it is to the French name), that men always ready to enter into unhappy quarrels about religion may see to what excesses the spirit of party will at length lead. In a court, then, that prided itself on politeness, a woman celebrated for the charms of her mind, and a young king twenty-three years old, orders were given A SHORT HISTORY OF THE EVENTS ON WHICH in cold blood for the death of more than THE FABLE OF THE POEM OF THE HEN- The fire of civil war, the first sparks of which had appeared in the reign of a million of their subjects. This same nation which, at this day, cannot think of that crime without shuddering with horror, committed it in a transport of zeal. More than one hundred thousand of men were assassinated by their countrymen, and without the wise precaution of some virtuous persons, such as President Jeannin, the Marquis of St. Herem, and others, one-half of the French would have massacred the other. Charles IX. did not live long after this massacre. His brother, Henry III., left the throne of Poland, and came to plunge France into new troubles, from which it was only delivered by HENRY IV., so justly surnamed GREAT by posterity, which alone can confer that title. On his return to France, Henry III. found two dominant parties. One was that of the Reformers, arising from their ashes, and more violent than ever, having at their head that same Henry the Great, then King of Navarre. The other was that of the League, a powerful faction, formed by degrees by the Princes of Guise, encouraged by the popes, fomented by Spain, daily growing by the artifices of the monks, apparently consecrated by zeal for the Catholic religion, but only tending to rebellion. The chief was the Duke of Guise, surnamed the Balafre, a prince of high reputation, and whose qualities, being rather great than good, seemed born to change the face of affairs in the State in this time of trouble. Henry III., instead of suppressing these parties by the weight of royal authority, strengthened them by his weakness. He thought he made a great political stroke by announcing himself the chief of the league; but he was only their slave. He was obliged to go to war for the interest of the Duke of Guise, who wanted to dethrone him, against the King of Navarre, his brother-in-law, his heir presumptive, who only desired to establish the royal authority, and the more so as, acting under Henry III., whom he would succeed, he was acting for himself. The army that Henry III. sent against the king, his brother-in-law, was defeated at Coutras, and his favorite Joyeuse was killed. The King of Navarre wished no other fruit from his victory than to be reconciled to the king. Though the conqueror, he asked for peace; but the conquered king dared not accept it, so fearful was he of the Duke of Guise and the League. Guise at that time had routed a German army. This success of the Balafre humbled still more the King of France, who felt he was conquered by the League as well as by the Reformers. The Duke of Guise, elated by his success, and strong through the weakness of the sovereign, came to Paris in spite of his orders. Then arrived the famous day of the barricades, when the people drove away the king's guards, and the monarch was obliged to flee from his capital. Guise went still farther: he obliged the king to hold the States-general at Blois, and he had taken his measures so well that he. was ready to share the royal authority, by the consent of those who represented the nation, under the appearance of the most respectful formalities. Henry III., waked up by this most pressing danger, caused the assassination in the castle of Blois of this most dangerous enemy, as also his brother, the cardinal, a man more violent and ambitious than the duke himself. What befell the Protestant party after the St. Bartholomew now befell the League. The death of their chief gave new life to the party. The leaguers took off the mask, Paris closed its gates, and only vengeance was talked of. Henry III. was looked upon as an assassin of the defenders of religion, and not as a king who had punished his criminal subjects. Pressed on all sides, Henry III. was forced to seek a reconciliation with his brother-in-law, Henry IV. These two princes camped before Paris, and here begins the Henriad. The Duke of Guise had but one brother left, the Duke of Mayenne, an intrepid character, rather skilful than active, who saw himself at the head of a faction aware of its strength and animated with vengeance and fanaticism. Nearly all Europe entered into this war. The celebrated Elizabeth, Queen of England, who highly esteemed the King of Navarre, and who had always a great desire to see him, often assisted him with men, money, and ships; and it was Duplessis Mornay who always went to England to ask her aid. On the other hand, the branch of Austria which reigned in Spain favored the League, in hopes to acquire some spoil from a kingdom rent with civil war. beautiful Gabrielle d'Estree; but his For the rest, many considerable facts are omitted which are unsuitable for a poem. No mention is made of the expe which only delayed the fall of the League, nor of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who was for some time the phantom of a king under the name of Charles X. It is sufficient to say that, after so many misfortunes and desolations, Henry IV. became a Catholic; and the Parisians, who hated his religion as a Protestant, but reverenced his person, were then willing to recognize him as their king. The popes fought against the King of Navarre, not only by excommunications, but by all arts of policy and all the small assistance of men and money that Rome could furnish. In the mean time, Henry went to make himself master of Paris, when he was assassinated at St. Cloud by a dominican monk, who committed the regicidal act in the full assurance that he was serving God and deserved martyrdom, and that murder was not his crime alone, but it was that of the whole party. Pub-dition of the Duke of Parma in France, lie opinion, the belief of all the leaguers, was that a king should be killed if obnoxious to the court of Rome. The preachers promulgated it in their sermons; it was printed in all those contemptible books that flooded France, and which are rarely found at this day in some libraries as carious monuments of the age equally barbarous for letters and for its manners. After the death of Henry III., the King of Navarre, Henry IV., recognized as King of France by the army, had to contend against all the forces of the League, those of Rome and Spain, and to conquer his own kingdom. He blockaded, he besieged Paris several times. Among the great men useful to him in this war, and of whom notice is taken in this poem, may be ranked Marshall d'Aumond, Biron the Duke of Bouillon, and Duplessis Mornay, who was his most intimate confidant till he changed his reHirion. He served him personally in the army and with his pen against the excomLunications of the popes, and with his talents in negotiations and in obtaining Fictor from all Protestant princes. The chief of the League was the Duke of Mayenne; next to him in renown was the Chevalier d'Aumale, a young prince known for that pride and brilliant courage that distinguished the house of Guise. They obtained much help from Spain; but mention is only made here of the famous Dule of Egmont, son of the admiral, who led thirteen or fourteen hundred lancers to the aid of Mayenne. Many batties were fought; the most famous, decisive, and glorious for Henry IV. was that of Ivry, when Mayenne was defeated and Egmont slain. In the course of this war the king fell in love with the ESSAY ON THE CIVIL WARS OF FRANCE. Henry the Great was born in 1553, at Pau, a little town, the capital of Bearn. Anthony of Bourbon, Duke of Vendorne, his father, was of the royal blood of France, and the chief of the branch of Bourbon (which formerly signified bourbeux, that is, muddy), so called from an estate that fell to their house by a marriage with the heiress of Bourbon. The house of Bourbon, from the time of Louis IX. to that of Henry IV., had almost always been neglected, and reduced to such a state of poverty that it is pretended the famous Prince of Conde, brother of Anthony of Navarre, and uncle of Henry IV., had only six hundred francs revenue for his patrimony. The mother of Henry was Jane d'Albret, daughter of Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre, a prince without merit, but a good man, rather indolent than peaceable, who sustained with too much resignation the loss of his kingdom, taken away from his father by the bull of the pope, assisted by the arms of Spain. Jane, the daughter of this weak prince, had a still weaker husband, to whom she brought in marriage the principality of Bearn, and the empty title of King of Navarre. This prince, who lived in the time of factions and civil war, when firmness of mind is necessary, exhibited in his conduct only instability and irresolution. He never knew to what party or to what religion he belonged. Without talent for the court, and without capacity for the place of general of an army, he passed his whole life in assisting his enemies and ruining his adherents; the tool of Catharine de Medicis, amused and tyrannized over by the Guises, and always the dupe of himself. He received a fatal wound at the siege of Rouen, when he fought in the cause of his enemies against the interests of his own house. He showed at his death the same uneasy and fluctuating spirit that had agitated him in his lifetime. Jane d'Albret was an entirely different character, — full of courage and resolution, dreaded by the court of France, beloved by the Protestants, and respected by both parties. She had all the qualities that constitute a great politician, devoid, however, of the little artifices of intrigue and cabal. It is worthy of remark that she became a Protestant at the same time that her husband returned to Catholicism, and was as constant in her religion as Anthony was inconstant in his. Thus it happened that she was at the head of one party, while her husband was the sport of the other. a man, fortune opened in France a bloody scene, and amidst the wreck of a kingdom almost destroyed, and on the ashes of many princes prematurely dead, he cleared his way to a throne that he could only restore to its original splendor by conquest. Henry II., King of France, chief of the branch of Valois, was killed in Paris at a tournament which was the last in Europe of these romantic and dangerous diversions. He left four sons, Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III., and the Duke of Alencon. All these unworthy descendants successively mounted the throne except the Duke of Alencon, who fortunately died at an early age, and left no issue. The reign of Francis II. was short, but remarkable. It was at that period that those factions began and those calamities succeeded which for thirty successive years wasted the kingdom of France. He married the celebrated and unfortunete Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, whose weakness and beauty led her to commit great faults, followed by still greater misfortunes, and lastly to a tragic death. She was absolute master of her young husband, a prince of eighteen years, without virtues and without vices, born with a delicate constitution and a weak mind. Incapable of governing alone, Jealous of her son's education, she took she placed herself without reserve in the charge of it herself. Henry, from his hands of the Duke of Guise, the brother birth, had all the excellent qualities of of her mother. Through her he influhis mother, and in the sequel carried themenced the mind of the king, and this laid to a higher degree of perfection. He the foundation of the greatness of his had only inherited from his father a certain easiness of disposition, which in Anthony had degenerated into weakness and instability, while in Henry it became benevolence and good nature. He was not brought up like a prince in that base pride and effeminacy which enervate the body, weaken the mind, and harden the heart. His food was coarse and his dress plain. He always went uncovered. He was sent to school with lads of the same age; he climbed with them the rocks and hills round about, as was the custom of the country. While he was thus brought up in the midst of his subjects, in a kind of equality, without which a prince is apt to forget that he is own house. It was at this time that Catharine de Medicis, widow of the late king and mother of the reigning king, showed the first symptoms of her ambition, which she had sedulously stifled during the lifetime of Henry II. But seeing she could not control the mind of her son and a young princess whom he tenderly loved, she deemed it more to her advantage to be for some time their instrument, and to use their power to establish her authority, than to oppose them uselessly. Thus the Guises governed the king and the two queens. Masters of the court, they became masters of the kingdom; in France, the one is a necessary consequence of the other. |