He refused to assassinate Francis Alencon at the bidding of Henry III., but he attempted to procure the murder of the truest of his own friends, one of the noblest characters of the age--whose breast showed twelve scars received in his services--Agrippa D'Aubigne, because the honest soldier had refused to become his pimp--a service the King had implored upon his knees.
Beneath the mask of perpetual careless good-humour, lurked the keenest eye, a subtle, restless, widely combining brain, and an iron will.

Native sagacity had been tempered into consummate elasticity by the fiery atmosphere in which feebler natures had been dissolved.

His wit was as flashing and as quickly unsheathed as his sword.

Desperate, apparently reckless temerity on the battle-field was deliberately indulged in, that the world might be brought to recognise a hero and chieftain in a King.
The do-nothings of the Merovingian line had been succeeded by the Pepins; to the effete Carlovingians had come a Capet; to the impotent Valois should come a worthier descendant of St.Louis.This was shrewd Gascon calculation, aided by constitutional fearlessness.

When despatch-writing, invisible Philips, stargazing Rudolphs, and petticoated Henrys, sat upon the thrones of Europe, it was wholesome to show the world that there was a King left who could move about in the bustle and business of the age, and could charge as well as most soldiers at the head of his cavalry; that there was one more sovereign fit to reign over men, besides the glorious Virgin who governed England.
Thus courageous, crafty, far-seeing, consistent, untiring, imperturbable, he was born to command, and had a right to reign.