[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":120},["ShallowReactive",2],{"hreflang:/en/p/p7-renaissance/ch/p7ch9-henry-iv-king-of-france-and-navarre-the-pacification-of-the-kingdom-and-the-edict-of-nantes-1589-1610":3,"chapter:p7ch9:en":7,"chapters:p7:en":61},{"fr":4,"en":5,"es":6},"/p/p7-la-renaissance/ch/p7ch9-henri-iv-roi-de-france-et-de-navarre-la-pacification-du-royaume-et-ledit-de-nantes-1589-1610","/en/p/p7-renaissance/ch/p7ch9-henry-iv-king-of-france-and-navarre-the-pacification-of-the-kingdom-and-the-edict-of-nantes-1589-1610","/es/p/p7-renacimiento/ch/p7ch9-enrique-iv-rey-de-francia-y-de-navarra-la-pacificacion-del-reino-y-el-edicto-de-nantes-1589-1610",{"period":8,"chapter":30},{"id":9,"title":10,"titleEn":10,"titleEs":11,"range":12,"rangeEn":12,"rangeEs":12,"covers":13,"coverArtworkId":26,"cover":27},"p7","Renaissance","Renacimiento","1461 → 1610",[14,17,20,23],{"filename":15,"url":16},"British_-_Field_of_the_Cloth_of_Gold_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg","https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/British_-_Field_of_the_Cloth_of_Gold_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg?width=1600",{"filename":18,"url":19},"Marignan-1515-francois1er.jpg","https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Marignan-1515-francois1er.jpg?width=1600",{"filename":21,"url":22},"ChateauDeChambord.jpg","https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/ChateauDeChambord.jpg?width=1600",{"filename":24,"url":25},"Henri_IV_Toschi_(format_original).jpg","https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Henri_IV_Toschi_(format_original).jpg?width=1600","",{"fileName":24,"imageUrl":25,"filePageUrl":28,"sourceLabel":29},"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henri_IV_Toschi_(format_original).jpg","Wikimedia Commons",{"id":31,"title":32,"periodId":9,"html":33,"zooms":34,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":58,"realm":26,"seoDescription":59,"thumbnailUrl":60},"p7ch9","Henry IV, King of France and Navarre: the pacification of the kingdom and the Edict of Nantes (1589-1610)","\u003Cp>On \u003Cstrong>2 August 1589\u003C/strong>, at the bedside of the dying Henry III, \u003Cstrong>Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre\u003C/strong>, became King of France under the name \u003Cstrong>Henry IV\u003C/strong> — the first sovereign of the House of Bourbon, but a king whom the greater part of the kingdom, held by the Catholic League, then refused to recognise. A Protestant at the head of a country that remained overwhelmingly Catholic, he inherited for the moment only a contested title, which he would have to conquer, for lack of undisputed legitimacy, by force of arms.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This new king took possession of an exhausted kingdom: thirty years of Wars of Religion had ruined the crown’s finances, devastated entire provinces, and left a nobility accustomed to negotiating — or even betraying — with weapons in hand. Paris remained closed to him, the Spain of Philip II actively supported his adversaries, and the religious question — could a Protestant king legitimately rule over a Catholic kingdom? — poisoned every stage of his real accession to power.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Henry IV’s reign was marked by a constant pragmatism, always preferring the most effective solution to the most orthodox one: military victory when it was possible, negotiation when it was necessary, religious conversion when it alone could unblock a situation frozen for years. This king of war turned pacifier, then builder, embodied a rare transition in the history of the French monarchy — that of a party leader becoming king of all his subjects, including those who had fought him longest.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The reign unfolded along several inseparable axes. On the military plane, the reconquest of the kingdom by arms (Arques, Ivry, the sieges of Paris, Rouen and Amiens) preceded and conditioned any lasting political recognition. On the religious plane, the conversion of 1593 and the Edict of Nantes of 1598 closed, one after the other, the two great fractures opened by the civil wars. On the domestic plane, the action of \u003Cstrong>Sully\u003C/strong> restored royal finances that had been utterly exhausted and, with the birth of the dauphin Louis in 1601, secured the survival of the fledgling dynasty. On the external plane, finally, the Peace of Vervins, colonial expansion in Acadia and at Quebec, and then the crisis over Cleves-Jülich, sketched the outlines of an assertive European policy in the face of the Habsburgs — a policy that the king’s assassination, on 14 May 1610, interrupted just three days before its military culmination.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Henry IV’s reign thus occupies a pivotal place in the history of France: the last great episode of the Wars of Religion and the first act of the Bourbon dynasty, it closed a cycle of civil violence opened in 1562 while laying, through the financial and administrative reconstruction he undertook, the foundations on which his successors would build the absolute monarchy. His brutal death, at the very moment when the kingdom seemed at last to have regained stability and power, was to leave a lasting mark on French collective memory, which would make him the most popular figure among all the kings of France.\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>I. 1589–1590: the immediate reconquest\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Proclaimed king on \u003Cstrong>2 August 1589\u003C/strong> at the bedside of the dying Henry III, \u003Cstrong>Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre\u003C/strong>, now \u003Cstrong>Henry IV\u003C/strong>, inherited for the moment only a widely contested title: the greater part of the kingdom, held by the Catholic League and its leader the Duke of Mayenne, refused to recognise this Protestant sovereign, and Paris remained closed to him. His legitimacy he would have to win by force of arms, in a series of campaigns which, from the very first year of his reign, revealed an unexpectedly skilful commander.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Aware that military force alone would not suffice to secure his authority, Henry IV responded as early as \u003Cstrong>4 August 1589\u003C/strong> with a decisive political gesture: the \u003Cstrong>Declaration of Saint-Cloud\u003C/strong>, in which he solemnly pledged to maintain Catholicism as the religion of the kingdom and to convene the estates-general to settle the most contested questions. This text, published just two days after his accession, was aimed at reassuring the moderate Catholics — the “politiques” — whom the mere prospect of a Protestant king troubled without pushing them into the arms of the League; it largely explains why part of the nobility and several Catholic towns chose, in the months that followed, not to join Mayenne’s camp.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The first military test came as early as September. \u003Cstrong>Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne\u003C/strong>, marched against the new king at the head of an army 30,000 to 35,000 strong, against only 15,000 for Henry IV, who chose to entrench himself in a fortified camp around the château of \u003Cstrong>Arques\u003C/strong>, near Dieppe. From \u003Cstrong>15 to 29 September 1589\u003C/strong>, the League’s repeated assaults broke against the royal artillery; salvation finally came from the sea, when, within less than three days from 23 September, English reinforcements sent by \u003Cstrong>Elizabeth I\u003C/strong> — fifty men, then 1,200 Scots, then 4,000 more soldiers — landed to support the king. Mayenne, routed, had to retreat in disorder: the \u003Cstrong>Battle of Arques\u003C/strong> gave Henry IV his first resounding victory and demonstrated, against all expectations, the military viability of his cause.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Six months later, a second, even more decisive confrontation took place on the plain of Saint-André, between Nonancourt and Ivry. On \u003Cstrong>14 March 1590\u003C/strong>, the royal army — 8,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, backed by only four cannons and two culverins — faced Mayenne’s forces, reinforced by Spanish contingents and vastly superior in numbers. Before the engagement, Henry IV is said to have called out to his men the words that remain famous: “\u003Cstrong>Rally to my white plume\u003C/strong>”, durably popularising the white ornament of his helmet as a symbol of his presence at the thickest of the fray. Despite the numerical inferiority, the \u003Cstrong>Battle of Ivry\u003C/strong> turned in the king’s favour: around 6,000 dead on the Catholic side, the capture of five cannons, of all the enemy’s flags, of Mayenne’s own guidon and of the standard of the Count of Egmont.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/bataille-ivry-1590-rubens-snayers\" data-art-id=\"bataille-ivry-1590-rubens-snayers\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Peter_Paul_Rubens%2C_Pieter_Snayers_-_Henry_IV_at_the_battle_of_Ivry.jpg/960px-Peter_Paul_Rubens%2C_Pieter_Snayers_-_Henry_IV_at_the_battle_of_Ivry.jpg\" alt=\"Henry IV at the battle of Ivry\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV at the battle of Ivry: Peter Paul Rubens and Pieter Snayers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Emboldened by this double victory, Henry IV resolved to deliver the decisive blow by attacking the League’s capital directly. From \u003Cstrong>8 May 1590\u003C/strong>, he installed his artillery on the heights of Montmartre and Montfaucon and began the \u003Cstrong>siege of Paris\u003C/strong>, defended by the Duke of Nemours, hoping to starve into submission a city too populous to hold out long without supplies. The abbey of Montmartre, requisitioned to house the king and his artillery, was to remain associated with an episode that became famous in local memory: it was there that the king met the young \u003Cstrong>Marie de Beauvilliers\u003C/strong>, a nun barely sixteen years old, whom he had appointed abbess a few years later, in 1597-1598.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-abbesse-montmartre-vafflard\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-abbesse-montmartre-vafflard\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Vafflard_-_Henri_IV_et_l%27abbesse_de_Montmartre.jpg/960px-Vafflard_-_Henri_IV_et_l%27abbesse_de_Montmartre.jpg\" alt=\"Henry IV and the abbess of Montmartre\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV and the abbess of Montmartre: Pierre-Auguste Vafflard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The calculation proved correct but terribly costly: the blockade caused a devastating famine, killing between 30,000 and 45,000 of the capital’s 200,000 to 220,000 inhabitants.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-assiegeant-paris-1590-anonyme\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-assiegeant-paris-1590-anonyme\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Henri_IV_assi%C3%A9geant_Paris.jpg/960px-Henri_IV_assi%C3%A9geant_Paris.jpg\" alt=\"Henry IV besieging Paris\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV besieging Paris: Anonymous, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>In a gesture that became famous, Henry IV nonetheless agreed to let sacks of grain pass through for the neediest non-combatants. But at the end of August 1590, as Paris seemed on the verge of surrender, a Spanish army commanded by \u003Cstrong>Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma\u003C/strong>, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, came to threaten the royal positions: Henry IV had to resign himself to lifting the siege, measuring for the first time the extent of the support Philip II’s Spain was prepared to give the League.\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>II. 1591–1593: bogged down, then conversion\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Strengthened by his battlefield victories yet still unable to break Spanish resistance, Henry IV then turned his efforts towards Normandy. From \u003Cstrong>December 1591 to May 1592\u003C/strong>, backed by English and Dutch contingents, he laid siege to \u003Cstrong>Rouen\u003C/strong>, defended for the League by admiral \u003Cstrong>André de Brancas, Lord of Villars\u003C/strong>. The king himself was wounded in February 1592 in an engagement near \u003Cstrong>Aumale\u003C/strong>, but the fate of the city was decided above all outside its walls: the Duke of Parma intervened a second time in France, at the head of 18,000 men, to relieve the besieged town. In the fighting before \u003Cstrong>Caudebec\u003C/strong> between 20 and 25 April 1592, he was himself wounded in the arm, but nevertheless managed to force Henry IV to lift the siege of Rouen a few weeks later — a fresh setback which, after that of Paris, confirmed the impossibility for the king of winning militarily so long as Spain actively supported the League.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This strategic deadlock nonetheless took an unexpected turn at the end of the year. Weakened by his wound and by declining health, \u003Cstrong>Alexander Farnese\u003C/strong> died on \u003Cstrong>3 December 1592\u003C/strong> at the abbey of Saint-Vaast in Arras, without having had time to learn that Philip II, irritated by the rumours circulating at the Madrid court, had just relieved him of his post as governor of the Netherlands. With him disappeared the most formidable military commander of the Spanish-League coalition, and the Catholic war effort emerged from it durably weakened, at the very moment when a new attempt at a political settlement of the crisis was opening.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>On \u003Cstrong>26 January 1593\u003C/strong>, indeed, the \u003Cstrong>estates-general of the League\u003C/strong> opened in Paris, convened to settle at last the question of the succession. On \u003Cstrong>2 April\u003C/strong>, the Duke of Feria, the Spanish ambassador, announced there the candidacy for the throne of the \u003Cstrong>Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia\u003C/strong>, daughter of Philip II and granddaughter of Henry II through her mother Elisabeth of Valois — a candidacy immediately rejected by the assembly, Salic law excluding any transmission of the crown through women. This failure opened the way to direct negotiations: between late April and late May 1593, the \u003Cstrong>Conference of Suresnes\u003C/strong> brought together twelve delegates of the League, including \u003Cstrong>Pierre d’Épinac\u003C/strong>, Archbishop of Lyon, facing eight royalist representatives led by \u003Cstrong>Renaud de Beaune\u003C/strong>, Archbishop of Bourges.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was in this climate that the decision which was to unblock the crisis matured. On \u003Cstrong>17 May 1593\u003C/strong>, Henry IV announced his intention to convert to Catholicism. Summoning to \u003Cstrong>Saint-Denis\u003C/strong> some twenty prelates and Catholic doctors, he received on \u003Cstrong>23 July\u003C/strong> from four of them — the bishops of Bourges, Le Mans, Évreux and Nantes — five uninterrupted hours of religious instruction; the following day, \u003Cstrong>24 July\u003C/strong>, a profession of faith was drafted and signed by the king after some discussion. On \u003Cstrong>25 July 1593\u003C/strong>, at the abbey of Saint-Denis, he at last solemnly abjured Protestantism and received absolution from the hands of Renaud de Beaune. The phrase traditionally attributed to him on this occasion, “Paris is well worth a Mass”, is in fact apocryphal: it appears in no contemporary source and was first attributed — to Sully, not to the king — only sixty-nine years later, in a text of 1662. Historians agree, however, on the essentially political character of this conversion, whose effect was immediate: that very evening, bonfires lit the road from Paris to Pontoise, and the Parisians who had witnessed the ceremony began to look upon their king with new sympathy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>III. 1594–1595: the political reconquest\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>The conversion soon bore fruit. On \u003Cstrong>27 February 1594\u003C/strong>, Henry IV was crowned King of France in the cathedral of \u003Cstrong>Chartres\u003C/strong> — and not at Reims, which remained in the hands of Mayenne’s troops and was thus inaccessible. Three weeks later, on \u003Cstrong>22 March 1594\u003C/strong>, he made a triumphant entry into \u003Cstrong>Paris\u003C/strong>, made possible by the complicity of the city’s governor, the \u003Cstrong>Duke of Brissac\u003C/strong>, who had secretly negotiated the capital’s surrender rather than risk another bloody siege. This double ceremony, coronation followed by entry into the city most hostile to his cause, completed the process by which Henry IV became, in the eyes of a majority of Frenchmen, a king in fact as much as in right. Throughout his reign, moreover, the king publicly reinforced this sacred legitimacy by practising the ritual of the \u003Cstrong>royal touch for scrofula\u003C/strong>, inherited from the Middle Ages: a gesture intended to demonstrate, through the miraculous cure it was supposed to bring about, the reality of his divine anointing — a demonstration all the more useful for a king whose sincerity of conversion continued to raise doubts among some Catholics.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-touche-ecrouelles-firens-1609\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-touche-ecrouelles-firens-1609\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Henri_IV_touche_les_escrouelles.jpg/960px-Henri_IV_touche_les_escrouelles.jpg\" alt=\"Henry IV touching for scrofula\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV touching for scrofula: Pierre Firens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/entree-henri-iv-paris-1594-gerard\" data-art-id=\"entree-henri-iv-paris-1594-gerard\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Entr%C3%A9e_de_HENRI_IV_dans_Paris_le_22_mars_1594.jpg/960px-Entr%C3%A9e_de_HENRI_IV_dans_Paris_le_22_mars_1594.jpg\" alt=\"Entry of Henry IV into Paris, 22 March 1594\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Entry of Henry IV into Paris, 22 March 1594: François Gérard, Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 \u003Ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\u003C/a>, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The threat, however, had not disappeared from within the kingdom. On \u003Cstrong>27 December 1594\u003C/strong>, a nineteen-year-old youth, \u003Cstrong>Jean Châtel\u003C/strong>, approached the king and, as Henry IV bent down to help up two courtiers kneeling before him, struck him in the face with a knife, wounding his upper lip and knocking out a tooth. Châtel was executed on \u003Cstrong>29 December\u003C/strong>, his hand burned with sulphur, lead and wax before his punishment. The attack, blamed on the influence of the \u003Cstrong>Jesuits\u003C/strong>, who had educated the young man, led to their collective expulsion from the kingdom by solemn decree; Father Guignard was hanged, while Châtel’s tutor and another Jesuit were condemned to perpetual banishment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Rid for the most part of the internal League threat, Henry IV could then turn to the adversary who had never ceased to support the League from the Netherlands: Spain. On \u003Cstrong>17 January 1595\u003C/strong>, on the advice of his ministers, he officially declared war on \u003Cstrong>Philip II\u003C/strong> and invaded Franche-Comté, a Habsburg territory chosen to cut the \u003Cstrong>Camino Español\u003C/strong> — the overland route by which Spain moved troops and resources to the Spanish Netherlands, bypassing the kingdom via its eastern and north-eastern borders. The decisive confrontation came on \u003Cstrong>5 June 1595\u003C/strong> at \u003Cstrong>Fontaine-Française\u003C/strong>, in Burgundy: setting out from Dijon at four in the morning at the head of barely 3,000 men reinforced by local peasants, Henry IV faced a Spanish-League army of more than 12,000 men commanded by \u003Cstrong>Juan Fernández de Velasco\u003C/strong>, governor of Milan, and by Mayenne himself. Seeing Marshal Biron surrounded, the king charged in person at the head of his cavalry and scattered the Spanish troops with such impetuosity that Velasco, convinced he was facing a much larger army, recrossed the Saône the very next day. The tally — six dead on the French side against one hundred and twenty dead, two hundred wounded and sixty prisoners on the enemy side — sealed a victory whose significance far outweighed its tactical scale: from that date the League ceased to exist as a serious military threat, even though formal peace with Spain would still have to wait three years.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/bataille-fontaine-francaise-1595-anonyme\" data-art-id=\"bataille-fontaine-francaise-1595-anonyme\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Bataille_de_Fontaine-Fran%C3%A7aise.jpg/960px-Bataille_de_Fontaine-Fran%C3%A7aise.jpg\" alt=\"Battle of Fontaine-Française\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Battle of Fontaine-Française: Anonymous, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There remained one last wound left open by the conversion to close: the rupture with Rome. On \u003Cstrong>17 September 1595\u003C/strong>, Pope \u003Cstrong>Clement VIII\u003C/strong> solemnly pronounced, on the forecourt of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the absolution of Henry IV, ending his excommunication and restoring diplomatic relations between France and the Holy See, interrupted since 1588. The king, who remained in France, was represented there by two of his agents, \u003Cstrong>d’Ossat\u003C/strong> and \u003Cstrong>du Perron\u003C/strong> — both destined to become cardinals — who received, kneeling before a papal throne richly set up for the occasion, the symbolic blows of the pontifical rod in his name. With this reconciliation, the crisis of religious legitimacy that had weighed on the reign since 1589 was fully resolved.\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>IV. 1596–1598: peace regained\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>The victory of Fontaine-Française had broken the League’s military backbone; it remained for Henry IV to gather the last political fruits of it. After his defeat, the loss of Burgundy and the rallying of many princes to the crown, \u003Cstrong>Charles de Mayenne\u003C/strong> in turn resolved to submit: on \u003Cstrong>24 January 1596\u003C/strong>, the Treaty of \u003Cstrong>Folembray\u003C/strong> sealed his reconciliation with the king, who at the same time cleared the princes of Lorraine of the charge of regicide brought against them since the assassination of Henry III. Mayenne had to give up the governorship of Burgundy, but received in compensation that of Île-de-France, excluding Paris, along with three strongholds for six years — Châlons-sur-Saône, Seurre and Soissons. On \u003Cstrong>31 January\u003C/strong>, he presented himself in person at the château of Monceaux, where he was received by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and knelt three times before the king, his corpulence making the scene almost comical to onlookers. This rallying, like those of the other last League leaders, came at a considerable cost to the royal treasury: more than ten million livres in all, roughly half the monarchy’s annual budget at the turn of the century.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This financial bloodletting, added to decades of civil war, left royal finances in a catastrophic state: the annual deficit then stood at around 18 million livres, and a good part of the crown’s revenues found themselves pledged to creditors. On the proposal of \u003Cstrong>Pomponne de Bellièvre\u003C/strong>, Henry IV convened for this purpose an \u003Cstrong>assembly of notables\u003C/strong>, held at \u003Cstrong>Rouen from 4 November 1596 to 26 January 1597\u003C/strong>: eighty to ninety-four delegates — nobles, prelates, finance officers and notables of the towns — sat there in three chambers and discovered, not without astonishment, the true extent of the court’s expenditure. Their deliberations resulted in an opinion demanding the strict separation of the State’s budget from that of the king’s household — a first step in an effort at financial recovery that the reconstruction of the kingdom, in the years that followed, would bring to completion.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Spain, however, had not given up trying to influence the course of events. On \u003Cstrong>11 March 1597\u003C/strong>, the Spanish governor of Doullens, \u003Cstrong>Hernán Tello de Portocarrero\u003C/strong>, seized \u003Cstrong>Amiens\u003C/strong> in a coup famous for its ingenuity: some thirty Spanish soldiers, disguised as peasants and laden with baskets and hampers of walnuts, approached the town’s gates as simple merchants heading to market; at the right moment, a few sacks were deliberately slashed open to distract the guards, while troops lying in wait seized the gate. The loss of this strategic stronghold in Picardy, a few days’ march from Paris, represented a direct threat to the capital. Henry IV reacted without delay: as early as May, Marshal \u003Cstrong>Biron\u003C/strong> laid siege to the town. An assault launched on 4 September failed, but Portocarrero was killed there, struck by an arquebus shot; his successor entrenched himself while awaiting a relief army of 25,000 men led by Archduke \u003Cstrong>Albert of Austria\u003C/strong>, which reached the walls of Amiens on 20 September without managing to break through the French lines, whose artillery got the better of its assaults. Amiens capitulated on \u003Cstrong>25 September 1597\u003C/strong>, putting a definitive end to the Spanish threat in the north of the kingdom.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-devant-amiens-1597\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-devant-amiens-1597\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Henri_IV_devant_Amiens.JPG/500px-Henri_IV_devant_Amiens.JPG\" alt=\"Henry IV before Amiens\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV before Amiens: Anonymous, Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 \u003Ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\u003C/a>, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>These two successes, one political, the other military, opened the way to the double resolution that was to close nearly four decades of civil and foreign wars. On \u003Cstrong>13 April 1598\u003C/strong>, Henry IV signed at Nantes the \u003Cstrong>Edict of Nantes\u003C/strong>: ninety-two public articles, supplemented by fifty-six secret articles and two financial warrants, organising freedom of conscience for Protestants throughout the territory, a restricted but guaranteed exercise of their worship, some sixty fortified places of safety where they could take refuge, and the payment by the royal treasury of annual subsidies for their pastors and academies. Three weeks later, on \u003Cstrong>2 May 1598\u003C/strong>, the \u003Cstrong>Peace of Vervins\u003C/strong> ended the Franco-Spanish war by essentially reprising the terms of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis signed thirty-nine years earlier: Spain evacuated Calais, Doullens, Ardres and Blavet, while Philip II formally renounced any claim to the French throne. The kingdom, for the first time since 1562, at last found itself pacified both within and beyond its borders.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This double victory soon found an allegorical translation in the artistic circle around the king: painted around 1600 within the circle of the painter Toussaint Dubreuil, a picture depicted Henry IV in the guise of Hercules slaying the Lernaean Hydra — a figure explicitly identified, according to its title, as that of the vanquished League.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-hercule-hydre-lerne-dubreuil\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-hercule-hydre-lerne-dubreuil\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Henry_IV_as_Hercules_slaying_the_Lernaean_Hydra.jpg/960px-Henry_IV_as_Hercules_slaying_the_Lernaean_Hydra.jpg\" alt=\"Henry IV as Hercules slaying the Lernaean Hydra\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV as Hercules slaying the Lernaean Hydra: Workshop of Toussaint Dubreuil, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z1\">Zoom – The Edict of Nantes: contents and application\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>V. 1598–1601: Sully and reconstruction\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>With peace won, an exhausted kingdom now had to be rebuilt. As early as \u003Cstrong>1598\u003C/strong>, \u003Cstrong>Maximilien de Béthune, Baron of Rosny\u003C/strong> — the future Duke of Sully —, a long-standing friend and companion in arms of the king, was entrusted de facto with the direction of finances, even though his title of superintendent would not be officially recorded in royal acts until the end of 1601. His method, made of rigour and economy rather than expedients, produced rapid results: he wrote off twenty million livres of accumulated arrears on the taille, before reducing the tax itself by a further five million, while suppressing a number of useless offices and the largesse distributed to the great nobles, a costly practice inherited from the reign of Henry III. This management saved on average a million livres a year between 1600 and 1610 — a recovery which, without erasing decades of debt at a stroke, for the first time in a long while gave the crown real room for manoeuvre.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This same period also saw Henry IV settle by force of arms a dispute left pending since the Peace of Vervins: possession of the \u003Cstrong>marquisate of Saluzzo\u003C/strong>, which Pope Clement VIII, charged with arbitrating the disagreement with Duke \u003Cstrong>Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy\u003C/strong>, had never managed to resolve. Exasperated, the king declared war on Savoy on \u003Cstrong>11 August 1600\u003C/strong> and personally took command of operations from his headquarters at Grenoble, established as early as 5 July. An army of about 8,000 men, rapidly increased to 16,000 by the addition of German lansquenets, provincial militias and the regiments of Picardy, Piedmont, Champagne and Navarre, backed by Sully’s artillery, spread across several fronts: \u003Cstrong>Biron\u003C/strong> conquered Bresse, Bugey and the Pays de Gex, seizing Bourg-en-Bresse as early as 13 August, while \u003Cstrong>Lesdiguières\u003C/strong>, with about 3,500 men, led the campaign in Tarentaise and Maurienne. The most hard-fought siege was that of \u003Cstrong>Montmélian\u003C/strong>, one of the most renowned citadels in Europe: the town fell after two days of fighting as early as 17 August, but the citadel, defended by three hundred men and thirty cannons under the command of the Count of Brandis, did not capitulate until \u003Cstrong>16 November\u003C/strong>, after the bombardments of a French artillery deployed in seven batteries of thirty-one cannons had dashed all hope of a relief army; the victors seized thirty-six pieces of artillery there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-siege-montmelian-1600-janet\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-siege-montmelian-1600-janet\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Henry_IV_of_France_at_the_siege_of_Montm%C3%A9lian%2C_1600.png/500px-Henry_IV_of_France_at_the_siege_of_Montm%C3%A9lian%2C_1600.png\" alt=\"Henry IV at the siege of Montmélian\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV at the siege of Montmélian: Ange-Louis Janet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>On \u003Cstrong>17 January 1601\u003C/strong>, the \u003Cstrong>Treaty of Lyon\u003C/strong> brought this conflict to a close in France’s favour: Savoy definitively ceded Bresse, Bugey, the Pays de Gex and the Valromey, retaining in exchange only the marquisate of Saluzzo, the original object of the dispute. Barely ten days after the signing of this treaty, one of its most effective architects on the ground, Marshal Biron, sealed at Soma the secret agreements that were to lead him to treason — an irony of timing that was to illustrate, the following year, the chronic instability of noble loyalty in the face of foreign temptations.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The reconstruction of the kingdom also required rebuilding the dynasty itself. Henry IV’s marriage to \u003Cstrong>Marguerite de Valois\u003C/strong>, left without offspring and emptied of any political substance for years, had been the subject of annulment proceedings begun as early as the spring of 1593 — but these remained blocked for several years, Marguerite refusing to sign so long as the king insisted on wishing to marry his mistress of the moment, \u003Cstrong>Gabrielle d’Estrées\u003C/strong>, to whom Henry IV had announced, in early 1599, his intention to give the crown before the year’s end.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/adieux-henri-iv-gabrielle-estrees-latil\" data-art-id=\"adieux-henri-iv-gabrielle-estrees-latil\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Les_adieux_d%27henri_IV_%C3%A0_Gabrielle_d%27Estr%C3%A9es.jpg/960px-Les_adieux_d%27henri_IV_%C3%A0_Gabrielle_d%27Estr%C3%A9es.jpg\" alt=\"The Farewell of Henry IV to Gabrielle d'Estrées\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>The Farewell of Henry IV to Gabrielle d’Estrées: Eugénie Latil, Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 \u003Ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\u003C/a>, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The plan was brutally cut short on \u003Cstrong>10 April 1599\u003C/strong>, when Gabrielle died in Paris amid atrocious convulsions, probably from eclampsia, pregnant with a fourth child who did not survive. Her death, however painful for the king, removed the obstacle blocking the proceedings: on \u003Cstrong>24 October 1599\u003C/strong>, Pope \u003Cstrong>Clement VIII\u003C/strong> was at last able to pronounce the bull annulling the marriage with Marguerite de Valois, on grounds that owed less to theology than to reasons of state — a king who had just reconquered his throne by arms and conversion could not allow his succession to depend on a barren marriage. The remarriage followed without delay: on \u003Cstrong>5 October 1600\u003C/strong>, at Florence, \u003Cstrong>Marie de Médicis\u003C/strong> married the king by proxy, represented for the occasion by \u003Cstrong>Roger de Bellegarde\u003C/strong>.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/mariage-procuration-marie-medicis-henri-iv-1600-rubens\" data-art-id=\"mariage-procuration-marie-medicis-henri-iv-1600-rubens\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Marriage_of_Maria_de%27_Medici_and_Henri_IV_per_proxy_Rubens.jpg/500px-Marriage_of_Maria_de%27_Medici_and_Henri_IV_per_proxy_Rubens.jpg\" alt=\"The proxy marriage of Marie de Médicis and Henry IV\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>The proxy marriage of Marie de Médicis and Henry IV: Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The new queen then travelled to Marseille and up the Rhône valley to Lyon, where Henry IV joined her on 10 December. The ceremony itself was celebrated on \u003Cstrong>17 December 1600\u003C/strong>, by the papal legate Cardinal \u003Cstrong>Aldobrandini\u003C/strong>.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The union bore fruit the very next year. On \u003Cstrong>27 September 1601\u003C/strong>, at the château of \u003Cstrong>Fontainebleau\u003C/strong>, Marie de Médicis, after more than twenty-two hours in labour, gave birth to a son named \u003Cstrong>Louis\u003C/strong> — the future Louis XIII. In keeping with the monarchical custom requiring that the birth take place in public so as to dispel any doubt as to the child’s legitimacy, the birth occurred in the king’s cabinet, judged more spacious than the queen’s chamber. This event carried considerable weight: it was the first legitimate male heir a French sovereign had brought into the world since Henry II, half a century earlier. After so many years of dynastic uncertainty that had fuelled the civil wars, the Bourbon crown, barely born, at last found itself assured of a lineage.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z0\">Zoom – Personality, private life and legacy of Henry IV\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z2\">Zoom – Sully and the reconstruction of the State\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>VI. 1601–1602: the Biron conspiracy\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Peace regained and the dynasty secured were not yet enough to guarantee the king’s authority over his own nobility. \u003Cstrong>Charles de Gontaut, Duke of Biron\u003C/strong>, admiral then marshal of France, governor of Burgundy and peer of the realm, embodied this persistent danger on his own: glorified for his decisive role at Arques and Ivry, showered with honours by a king who regarded him as a friend and companion in arms, he remained nonetheless, in the words of the chroniclers, “eternally unsatisfied with the benefits the king heaped upon him.” As early as 1598, on the occasion of the Vervins negotiations, he allowed himself to be approached by the agents of \u003Cstrong>Charles Emmanuel of Savoy\u003C/strong>, who dangled before him the hand of his third daughter and sovereignty over Burgundy and Franche-Comté in exchange for rising up against Henry IV.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The plot formally took shape on \u003Cstrong>27 January 1601\u003C/strong>, when \u003Cstrong>Jacques de La Fin\u003C/strong>, Biron’s agent and emissary, met at Soma with the representatives of Savoy and Spain — Charles Emmanuel, Fuentes and Ledesma — to seal the terms of the marshal’s engagement. Other great lords were mixed up in the affair, foremost among them \u003Cstrong>Charles de Valois, Count of Auvergne\u003C/strong>, and \u003Cstrong>Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon\u003C/strong>. Henry IV, already aware of an earlier betrayal by Biron at Lyon which he had chosen to forgive, tried a second time to obtain from him a sincere confession and repentance that would have allowed him, once again, to turn a blind eye — but Biron, convinced of his impunity, stubbornly refused to confide in the king.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The conspiracy collapsed of its own accord in \u003Cstrong>March 1602\u003C/strong>, when La Fin, having fallen out with his master, came to denounce the plot to Henry IV, then at Fontainebleau. During the night of \u003Cstrong>13 to 14 June 1602\u003C/strong>, Biron was arrested at the château of Fontainebleau itself and taken to the Bastille. His trial for high treason opened on 17 June before the councillors of the Parlement of Paris — the peers of the realm having refused to sit — and the accused was confronted with his denouncer on 14 July. Appearing on 27 July, Biron was sentenced to death on the 29th.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The execution took place on \u003Cstrong>31 July 1602\u003C/strong>, but not at the Place de Grève as the sentence had provided: Henry IV had his former companion in arms beheaded within the enclosed precincts of the Bastille, a gesture whose private character he himself justified “for his close relatives” and “to bear witness to the affection I bore him.” Faithful to his pride to the last, Biron gave full vent, in the courtyard of the Bastille, to all his rage against the king: they blindfolded him, he tore off the blindfold; they made him kneel, he stood up and tore off the blindfold a second time, crying out that he wanted “to see the sky once more.” The final sword-stroke, when it was at last delivered, was struck with such precision that witnesses barely noticed the gesture. This execution, at once rigorous in principle and discreet in form, reminded the whole of the great French nobility that loyalty to the king would henceforth tolerate no dealings with foreign powers. The lesson, however, did not strike all the conspirators with the same severity: the Count of Auvergne, arrested at the same time as Biron and himself guilty of compromising admissions, was released almost at once thanks to the intervention of his half-sister, his aunt the Duchess of Angoulême, and his father-in-law — he would not be re-imprisoned, more harshly this time, until November 1604 —, while the Duke of Bouillon, briefly under suspicion, took refuge in his principality of Sedan and long felt the weight of this warning.\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>VII. 1603–1608: colonial expansion and rivalry with the Habsburgs\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>These years of regained stability also saw the spread, in court art, of a glorified image of the sovereign: it was thus that, around 1605-1606, the Gallery of Diana at the château of Fontainebleau was enriched with a portrait of Henry IV as Mars, the Roman god of war, celebrating in retrospect the king’s military valour more than a decade after his campaigns of reconquest.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/portrait-henri-iv-mars-bunel\" data-art-id=\"portrait-henri-iv-mars-bunel\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Mus%C3%A9e_national_du_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Pau_-_Portait_d%27Henri_IV_en_Mars_-_Ambroise_Dubois_P_81_20_1.jpg/500px-Mus%C3%A9e_national_du_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Pau_-_Portait_d%27Henri_IV_en_Mars_-_Ambroise_Dubois_P_81_20_1.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Henry IV as Mars\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Portrait of Henry IV as Mars: Jacob Bunel, Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 \u003Ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\u003C/a>, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>While the king was consolidating his authority in France, his gaze also turned beyond the Atlantic. In \u003Cstrong>1603\u003C/strong>, Henry IV appointed \u003Cstrong>Pierre Dugua de Mons\u003C/strong> his “lieutenant general in North America” and granted him the monopoly of the fur trade, in exchange for the obligation to populate the land — a hundred settlers the first year, fifty a year thereafter — and to establish Christianity there. As early as the summer of \u003Cstrong>1604\u003C/strong>, Dugua, accompanied by \u003Cstrong>Samuel de Champlain\u003C/strong> and \u003Cstrong>Jean de Biencourt\u003C/strong>, had a settlement built on \u003Cstrong>Île Sainte-Croix\u003C/strong>, in Acadia, the first European establishment with a permanent mission in North America. The winter there proved so harsh that the small colony had to be moved in \u003Cstrong>August 1605\u003C/strong> to \u003Cstrong>Port-Royal\u003C/strong>, a better-sheltered site. But the enterprise soon ran into the hostility of private merchants deprived of the fur trade, particularly those of Rouen, whose repeated complaints pushed Henry IV to suspend Dugua’s monopoly: the Acadian venture gradually died out around \u003Cstrong>1606-1607\u003C/strong>.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Dugua did not give up his North American ambitions for all that. In \u003Cstrong>1608\u003C/strong>, he obtained the renewal of his monopoly for a single year — but that was enough to finance a new expedition, this time towards the Saint Lawrence River, of which he remained the instigator and financial backer while Champlain led it in the field. On \u003Cstrong>3 July 1608\u003C/strong>, Champlain founded \u003Cstrong>Quebec\u003C/strong>, on a promontory frequented by native peoples for nearly three thousand years, and within a few days had a wooden habitation built there to shelter twenty-eight men.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/champlain-habitation-quebec-1608-jefferys\" data-art-id=\"champlain-habitation-quebec-1608-jefferys\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Qu%C3%A9bec-1608-Champlain-construisant-son-Habitation.jpg/960px-Qu%C3%A9bec-1608-Champlain-construisant-son-Habitation.jpg\" alt=\"Champlain building his Habitation at Quebec\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Champlain building his Habitation at Quebec: Charles William Jefferys, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This first lasting French settlement in America very nearly perished in its first winter: scurvy carried off, during the winter of 1608-1609, a majority of the habitation’s occupants — accounts differ on the exact number of victims, between sixteen and twenty men according to the sources —, and the survivors received relief supplies only in April 1609. Despite this ordeal, Quebec was to become the heart of the future New France.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>On the European stage, Henry IV’s diplomacy remained dominated, throughout this period, by the underlying rivalry with the \u003Cstrong>Habsburgs\u003C/strong>, masters of both Madrid and Vienna. In \u003Cstrong>August 1604\u003C/strong>, the Treaty of London ended the Anglo-Spanish war between Philip III and \u003Cstrong>James I of England\u003C/strong>, redrawing the diplomatic balance that France had to take into account. Two years later, in \u003Cstrong>1606\u003C/strong>, the last great Spanish offensive against the \u003Cstrong>United Provinces\u003C/strong> failed in the Netherlands, durably weakening the Habsburgs’ position in the region. This context pushed the Protestant principalities of Germany, seeking support against Madrid and Vienna, to turn towards Holland, England and France — a network of alliances still informal, but one that was to take full shape in the years that followed, on the occasion of a succession crisis in the Rhineland.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z3\">Zoom – Architecture, urban planning and patronage under Henry IV\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z4\">Zoom – Diplomacy and the “Grand Design” for Europe\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>VIII. 1609–1610: the Cleves-Jülich crisis and the assassination of Henry IV\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>This foreshadowed Rhenish crisis broke out as early as \u003Cstrong>1609\u003C/strong>. On \u003Cstrong>25 March\u003C/strong>, the death of \u003Cstrong>John William, Duke of Cleves and Jülich\u003C/strong>, without a direct heir, extinguished the elder branch of the Marck and opened a succession immediately disputed: two Protestant claimants, Elector \u003Cstrong>John Sigismund of Brandenburg\u003C/strong> and \u003Cstrong>Wolfgang William of Palatinate-Neuburg\u003C/strong>, clashed with the Catholic candidacy of \u003Cstrong>Charles of Habsburg\u003C/strong>, cousin of Emperor Rudolf II. The stakes went far beyond a simple dynastic quarrel: this territory on the lower Rhine, in close proximity to the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands then at war, was of considerable strategic importance. In \u003Cstrong>July 1609\u003C/strong>, Rudolf II had Jülich occupied, triggering an open crisis. Henry IV, determined to prevent the Habsburgs from gaining control of the region, allied himself with the German Protestant princes of the \u003Cstrong>Evangelical Union\u003C/strong> against Madrid and Vienna. A more personal motive further stoked his determination: that same year, the Prince of Condé, jealous of the king’s infatuation with his wife \u003Cstrong>Charlotte de Montmorency\u003C/strong>, had fled with her to Brussels, under the protection of the Infanta Isabella — an episode that further poisoned relations between Paris and the Spanish Netherlands.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>At the start of \u003Cstrong>1610\u003C/strong>, Henry IV gathered in Champagne, at \u003Cstrong>Châlons\u003C/strong> and \u003Cstrong>Mézières\u003C/strong>, a considerable army of \u003Cstrong>32,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry and a hundred cannons\u003C/strong>, ready to march towards the Meuse against the imperial and Spanish forces. The departure of the campaign was set for \u003Cstrong>17 May\u003C/strong>. Aware of the risks of such a prolonged absence, the king wished to ensure the continuity of power should the need arise: on \u003Cstrong>13 May 1610\u003C/strong>, in the basilica of \u003Cstrong>Saint-Denis\u003C/strong>, \u003Cstrong>Marie de Médicis\u003C/strong> was solemnly crowned Queen of France, a ceremony intended to confer greater legitimacy on the potential regent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/couronnement-marie-medicis-1610-rubens\" data-art-id=\"couronnement-marie-medicis-1610-rubens\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Rubens_Pieter_Paul_Coronation_Of_Marie_De_Medici_To_Strengthen_Authority_Regent_louvre.jpg/960px-Rubens_Pieter_Paul_Coronation_Of_Marie_De_Medici_To_Strengthen_Authority_Regent_louvre.jpg\" alt=\"The Coronation of Marie de Médicis at Saint-Denis\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>The Coronation of Marie de Médicis at Saint-Denis: Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The day after this coronation, as everything seemed ready for war, history took an unexpected turn. On \u003Cstrong>14 May 1610\u003C/strong>, around four in the afternoon, the king’s carriage, on its way to the bedside of the ailing \u003Cstrong>Sully\u003C/strong>, found itself blocked in the \u003Cstrong>rue de la Ferronnerie\u003C/strong>, in Paris, by a jam — a cart of hay and a wagon loaded with wine casks were manoeuvring with difficulty and paralysing traffic. In the carriage, alongside the king, sat the Duke of \u003Cstrong>Épernon\u003C/strong>, seated at his immediate right, as well as Liancourt and Mirebeau facing them, while Lavardin, Roquelaure, Montbazon and La Force stood at the doors. \u003Cstrong>François Ravaillac\u003C/strong>, a Catholic fanatic convinced that the king remained secretly Protestant and that the coming campaign was in reality aimed at the pope and Catholics, had been watching for his chance after several failed attempts to approach the sovereign; armed with a knife stolen from a tavern, he took advantage of the carriage’s halt to leap onto a wheel spoke and, reaching his arm over Épernon’s shoulder, strike the king three times. The second blow, fatal, pierced the right lung and severed the vena cava and the aorta. Henry IV died shortly after his return to the Louvre.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/assassinat-henri-iv-1610-bouttats\" data-art-id=\"assassinat-henri-iv-1610-bouttats\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Assassination_of_Henry_IV_by_Gaspar_Bouttats.jpg/960px-Assassination_of_Henry_IV_by_Gaspar_Bouttats.jpg\" alt=\"The Assassination of Henry IV\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>The Assassination of Henry IV: Gaspar Bouttats, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Ravaillac was tried within ten days and sentenced on \u003Cstrong>27 May 1610\u003C/strong>; he was executed that same day, at the Place de Grève, after torture and branding with a hot iron, torn apart by four horses, his remains burned and scattered. A direct witness to the murder, Épernon acted without delay: less than two hours after the king’s death, he had already had the Parlement declare the regency of \u003Cstrong>Marie de Médicis\u003C/strong> for her son \u003Cstrong>Louis XIII\u003C/strong>, aged eight — ensuring, amid the urgency and shock, the continuity of a monarchy that twenty-one years of reign had only just finished pacifying.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A few years after his death, the memory of the late king crossed the kingdom’s borders: between 1611 and 1613, \u003Cstrong>Christine de Lorraine\u003C/strong>, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and relative of Marie de Médicis, commissioned the painter \u003Cstrong>Frans Pourbus the Younger\u003C/strong> to paint a posthumous portrait of Henry IV in his coronation robes, intended for the Pitti Palace in Florence — a tribute from the Tuscan court to a sovereign whose tragic fate and pacifying reign had, within a few short years, won renown well beyond the borders of France.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca class=\"kb-art-link\" href=\"/en/art/henri-iv-habits-sacre-pourbus\" data-art-id=\"henri-iv-habits-sacre-pourbus\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/King_Henry_IV_in_his_coronation_robes%2C_by_Frans_Pourbus_the_Younger.jpg\" alt=\"Henry IV in his coronation robes\" class=\"kb-img-contain\" >\u003Cspan class=\"kb-art-badge\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003Ci class=\"pi pi-image\">\u003C/i>\u003C/span>\u003C/a>\n\u003Cem>Henry IV in his coronation robes: Frans Pourbus the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z5\">Zoom – The regency and the beginnings of Louis XIII (1610-1614)\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>🔍 \u003Cstrong>\u003Ca href=\"/en/zoom/p7ch9z6\">Zoom – The posthumous legend and legacy of Henry IV\u003C/a>\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Chr>\n\u003Ch2>🧠 Key takeaways\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>2 August 1589\u003C/strong>: Henri de Navarre becomes Henry IV, the first king of the Bourbon dynasty, but must reconquer his kingdom, contested by the Catholic League\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>The victories of Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590), followed by the sieges of Rouen and Amiens, gradually establish Henry IV as an undisputed military leader\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>25 July 1593\u003C/strong>: conversion to Catholicism at Saint-Denis, an essentially political decision, opens the way to the entry into Paris (22 March 1594) and general recognition throughout the kingdom\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>13 April 1598\u003C/strong>: the Edict of Nantes grants Protestants freedom of conscience and places of safety, while the Peace of Vervins (2 May 1598) ends the war against Spain\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Sully restores royal finances while the remarriage with Marie de Médicis (1600) and the birth of the dauphin Louis (1601) secure the dynasty’s future\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>The Franco-Savoyard war (1600-1601), concluded by the Treaty of Lyon, brings France Bresse, Bugey, the Pays de Gex and the Valromey; ten days later, one of its architects, Biron, seals the secret agreements that will lead him to treason\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>The conspiracy of the Duke of Biron (1602) reminds the great nobility that loyalty to the king will no longer tolerate any dealings with foreign powers\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Colonial expansion (Port-Royal, 1605; Quebec, 1608) lays the foundations of New France, while rivalry with the Habsburgs culminates in the Cleves-Jülich crisis (1609)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>14 May 1610\u003C/strong>: Henry IV is assassinated by Ravaillac in the rue de la Ferronnerie, just three days before the departure of a military campaign against the Empire; his son Louis XIII, aged eight, succeeds him under the regency of Marie de Médicis\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Chr>\n",[35,38,41,44,47,50,53],{"id":36,"title":37},"p7ch9z0","Personality, private life and legacy of Henry IV",{"id":39,"title":40},"p7ch9z1","The Edict of Nantes: contents and application",{"id":42,"title":43},"p7ch9z2","Sully and the reconstruction of the State",{"id":45,"title":46},"p7ch9z3","Architecture, urban planning and patronage under Henry IV",{"id":48,"title":49},"p7ch9z4","Diplomacy and the 'Grand Design' for Europe",{"id":51,"title":52},"p7ch9z5","The regency and the beginnings of Louis XIII (1610-1614)",{"id":54,"title":55},"p7ch9z6","The posthumous legend and legacy of Henry IV",true,false,"1589 à 1610","On 2 August 1589 , at the bedside of the dying Henry III, Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre , became King of France under the name Henry IV — the first","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch9.jpg",{"period":62,"chapters":69},{"id":9,"title":10,"titleEn":10,"titleEs":11,"range":12,"rangeEn":12,"rangeEs":12,"covers":63,"coverArtworkId":26,"cover":68},[64,65,66,67],{"filename":15,"url":16},{"filename":18,"url":19},{"filename":21,"url":22},{"filename":24,"url":25},{"fileName":24,"imageUrl":25,"filePageUrl":28,"sourceLabel":29},[70,76,82,88,94,100,106,112,118],{"id":71,"title":72,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":73,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":74,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":75,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch1","Louis XI: the spider and the construction of the modern state (1461-1483)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch1.png","The accession of Louis XI , in 1461 , opened a decisive phase in the history of the French monarchy. Son of Charles VII , from whom he inherited a kingdom alrea","1461 à 1483",{"id":77,"title":78,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":79,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":80,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":81,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch2","Charles VIII: the Italian adventure and the end of the direct dynasty (1483–1498)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch2.png","The reign of Charles VIII opened under paradoxical conditions. At the death of Louis XI , on 30 August 1483 , the crown passed to a ruler who was still a minor,","1483 à 1498",{"id":83,"title":84,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":85,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":86,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":87,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch3","Louis XII: The Father of the People and the Italian Wars (1498–1515)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch3.jpg","On 7 April 1498, the accidental death of Charles VIII placed on the throne of France his cousin Louis d’Orléans, crowned as Louis XII. This reign of nearly seve","1498 à 1515",{"id":89,"title":90,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":91,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":92,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":93,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch4","Francis I: The Knight King and the French Renaissance (1515–1547)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch4.jpg","The reign of Francis I opened with a brilliance few French sovereigns had known at their outset. Crowned at Reims three weeks after the death of Louis XII , the","1515 à 1547",{"id":95,"title":96,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":97,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":98,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":99,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch5","Henry II: The Chivalrous King and the Wars of Religion (1547-1559)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch5.jpg","The death of Francis I , on 31 March 1547 , brought to the throne a man whom nothing, in the imagination of the court, destined to resemble his father. Crowned ","1547 à 1559",{"id":101,"title":102,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":103,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":104,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":105,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch6","Francis II: the ephemeral king and the beginnings of the Wars of Religion (1559-1560)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch6.jpg","Francis II became king on 10 July 1559 , barely fifteen years old, the day after the accidental death of his father Henry II, wounded in a tournament three mont","1559 à 1560",{"id":107,"title":108,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":109,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":110,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":111,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch7","Charles IX: the Regency of Catherine de' Medici and the First Wars of Religion (1560-1574)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch7.jpg","Charles IX was only ten years old when the death of his brother Francis II, on 5 December 1560, brought him to the throne of France. Too young to rule on his ow","1560 à 1574",{"id":113,"title":114,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":115,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":116,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":117,"realm":26,"ready":56},"p7ch8","Henri III: The Final Crisis of the Valois and the Wars of the League (1574-1589)","/assets/covers/cover-p7ch8.jpg","On 14 June 1574 , news of the death of his brother Charles IX reached Henri III in Poland, where he had barely been elected king a few months earlier. Forced to","1574 à 1589",{"id":31,"title":32,"periodId":9,"thumbnailUrl":60,"thumbnailArtworkId":26,"hasEn":56,"isFallback":57,"teaser":119,"coverFit":26,"coverPosition":26,"chronicle":58,"realm":26,"ready":56},"On 2 August 1589 , at the bedside of the dying Henry III, Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre , became King of France under the name Henry IV — the first sovereig",1786625628818]