and petty characters encountered at every step under the regency of Mary de’ Medici, and, with their following, forming about her a court-hive, equally restless and useless.  Time does justice to some few men, and executes justice on the ruck:  one must have been of great worth indeed to deserve not to be forgotten.  Sully appeared once more at court after his momentary retreat to the arsenal; but, in spite of the show of favor which Mary de’ Medici thought it prudent and decent to preserve towards him for some little time, he soon saw that it was no longer the place for him, and that he was of as little use there to the state as to himself; he sent in, one after the other, his resignation of all his important offices, and terminated his life in regular retirement at Rosny and Sully-sur-Loire.  Du Plessis-Mornay attempted to still exercise a salutary influence over his party.

“Let there be no more talk amongst us,” said he, “of Huguenots or Papists; those words are prohibited by our edicts.  And, though there were no edict at all, still if we are French, if we love our country, our families, and even ourselves, they ought henceforth to be wiped out of our remembrance.  Whoso is a good Frenchman, shall to me be a citizen, shall to me be a brother.”  This meritorious and patriotic language was not entirely without moral effect, but it no longer guided, no longer inspired the government; egotism, intrigue, and mediocrity in ideas as well as in feelings had taken the place of Henry IV.  Facts, before long, made evident the sad result of this.  All the parties, all the personages who walked the stage and considered themselves of some account, believed that the moment had arrived for pushing their pretensions, and lost no time about putting them forward.  Those persons we will just pass in review without stopping at any one of them.  History has no room for all those who throng about her gates without succeeding in getting in and leaving traces of their stay.  The reformers were the party to which the reign of Henry IV. had brought most conquests, and which was bound to strive above everything to secure the possession of them by extracting from them every legitimate and practicable consequence.  Mary de’ Medici, having been declared regent, lost no time about confirming, on the 22d of May, 1610, the edict of Nantes and proclaiming religious peace as the due of France.  “We have nothing to do with the quarrels of the grandees,” said the people of Paris; “we have no mind to be mixed up with them.”  Some of the preachers of repute and of the party’s old leaders used the same language.  “There must be nought but a scarf any longer between us,” Du Plessis-Mornay would say.  Two great Protestant names were still intact at this epoch:  one, the Duke of Sully, without engaging in religious polemics, had persisted in abiding by the faith of his fathers, in spite of his king’s example and attempts to bring him over to the Catholic faith:  the other, Du Plessis-Mornay, had always striven, and was continuing to strive, actively for the Protestant cause.  These two illustrious champions of the Reformed party were in agreement with the new principles of national right, and with the intelligent instincts of their people, whose confidence they deserved and seemed to possess.