ENRICO III, king of FRANCIA. — The last of the Valois, son of Enrico II and Caterina de' Medici, b. on 20 September 1551 at Fontainebleau, d. in Paris on 1 August 1589. Not expected to inherit the throne as the sixth-born son, indulged by his mother in rivalry with his brother Carlo (IX), corrupted by an education and by refined and effeminate courtiers, he played no small part, barely twenty-one years old, in the massacre on the night of St Bartholomew. Brought to the Polish throne (April 1573–June 1574) by the favor of the Polish nobility and by the
His fifteen years of rule in France were a continuous effort, employing every means—blandishments, dissimulation, acts of force and cowardice—to secure for the monarchy a pre-eminent position independent of the factions that were tearing France apart, with particular distrust toward the Catholic League and its leader, Henry I, Duke of Guise, in whom he sensed a pretender to the throne. This suspicion was reinforced after June 1584, when, upon the death of the heir François of Valois, Duke of Alençon, the Catholic League set against the legitimate but Calvinist heir, Henry (IV) of Bourbon-Navarre, the less legitimate but Catholic Duke of Guise. To escape the pressure of the League members, E. left Paris (May 1588) and had Guise treacherously killed, thereby exasperating the Catholics, especially those of Paris, against the king and against the possibility of a Calvinist successor. The friar Jacques Clément became the interpreter of this popular exasperation and stabbed the king. - Vedi tav. XXIX.