After long wandering in strange seas, we come in view of familiar lights and headlands.

With the advent of the house of Bourbon, we have grasped a thread which leads directly down to our own time.
The accession of a Protestant king was hailed with delirious joy by the Huguenots, and with corresponding rage by Catholic France.

The one looked forward to redressing of wrongs and avenging of injuries; and the other flatly refused submission unless Henry should recant his heresy and become a convert to the true faith.
The new king saw there was no bed of roses preparing for him.

After four years of effort to reconcile the irreconcilable, he decided upon his course.

He was not called to the throne to rule over Protestant France, nor to be an instrument of vengeance for the Huguenots.
He saw that the highest good of the kingdom required not that he should impose upon it either form of belief or worship, but give equal opportunity and privilege to both.
To the consternation of the Huguenots, he announced himself ready to listen to the arguments in favor of the religion of Rome; and it took just five hours of deliberation to convince him of its truth.