HENRI IV, (1553-1610). King og France and Navarre.
Letter Signed ("Henry") to Philippe du Plessis-Mornay, his Counsellor and the Governor of Saumur, informing him that St. Phal had arrived and was lodging in the Bastille.
1 page folio in French with address on the verso, countersigned by the secretary De Neufville, Paris, 1 January 1599.
Henry tells his trusted adviser that the situation with regard to St. Phal is in the state that he wishes, and asks Duplessis-Mornay to come to him the next day if possible, as he very much wishes it.
Philippe Duplessis-Mornay (1549-1623) a Huguenot lawyer and writer, had been a principal adviser to Henri of Navarre since 1573. He had only escaped the Massacre of St. Bartholomew through the aid of a Catholic friend. Although disappointed by Henri's conversion to Catholicism in 1593 his loyalty was undimmed, and the two men maintained a lifelong friendship. Henri had appointed Duplessis-Mornay Governor of Saumur in 1589, a position he retained until his eighties. He founded a Protestant University there, later suppressed by Louis XIV. In 1579 he published A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants , justifying resistance by the people against a tyrannical ruler.
At this period the Bastille was more a fortress than a prison, and Henri IV kept his treasure there. Some important state prisoners were indeed occasionally held there, but it had not yet acquired its sinister reputation
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