No father but he could have such a loss." "He despatched on the instant," says Madame de Mornay herself, "Sieur Bruneau, one of his secretaries, with very gracious letters to comfort us; with orders, nevertheless, not to present himself unless he were sure that we already knew of it otherwise, not wishing to be the first to tell us such sad news." [_Memoires,_ t.ii.

p.

107.] This touching evidence of a king's sympathy for a father's grief effaced, no doubt, to some extent in Mornay's mind his reminiscences of the conference at Fontainebleau; one thing is quite certain, that he continued to render Henry IV., in the synods and political assemblies of the Protestants, his usual good offices for the maintenance or re-establishment of peace and good understanding between the Catholic king and his malcontent former friends.
A third Protestant, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, grandfather of Madame de Maintenon, has been reckoned here amongst not the councillors, certainly, but the familiar and still celebrated servants of Henry IV.

He held no great post, and had no great influence with the king; he was, on every occasion, a valiant soldier, a zealous Protestant, an indefatigable lover and seeker of adventure, sometimes an independent thinker, frequently an eloquent and bold speaker, always a very sprightly companion.

Henry IV.
at one time employed him, at another held aloof from him, or forgot him, or considered him a mischief-maker, a faction-monger who must be put in the Bastille, and against whom, if it seemed good, there would be enough to put him on his trial.