The secret negotiations and intrigues, however, by which those external facts were preceded or accompanied rest mainly in dusty archives, and it was therefore necessary to dwell somewhat at length upon them in the preceding pages.
The treaty of Joinville was signed on the last day of the year 1584.
We have seen the real nature of the interview of Ambassador Mendoza with Henry III.

and his mother, which took place early in January, 1585.
Immediately after that conference, Don Bernardino betook himself to the Duke of Guise, and lost no time in stimulating his confederate to prompt but secret action.
The Netherland envoys had their last audience on the 18th March, and their departure and disappointment was the signal for the general exhibition and explosion.

The great civil war began, and the man who refused to annex the Netherlands to the French kingdom soon ceased to be regarded as a king.
On the 31st March, the heir presumptive, just manufactured by the Guises, sent forth his manifesto.

Cardinal Bourbon, by this document, declared that for twenty-four years past no proper measures had been taken to extirpate the heresy by which France was infested.

There was no natural heir to the King.