Henry IV

Henry IV, King of Gascony (1553–1610)

The white plume, the poule au pot, the Vert-galant, the Edict of Nantes, the images d'Epinal—there is no shortage of imagery to describe the popular image of Henry IV.

Son of Antoine de Bourbon andJeanne d'Albret, Henri de Navarre was born in 1553 at the Château de Pau. He received the Béarnais baptism from his maternal grandfather,Henri d'Albret, on the day of his birth. This prophylactic tradition consists of rubbing the newborn's lips with a clove of garlic and sniffing a few drops of local wine, Jurançon. Raised mainly at the Château de Coarraze, where he received a rough Béarnais education in keeping with tradition, he very quickly became acquainted with the refinement of the royal court in Paris, where he met King Henri II and his cousins, the future François II, Charles IX, and Henri III.

On August 18, 1572, when he marriedMarguerite de Valoisat Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, Henri de Navarre had already changed religions three times, and he would change them just as many times after his wedding, mainly to satisfy his political ambitions.

Why Nérac?

Henri of Navarre spent a few short periods in Nérac, the town of his maternal ancestors, the Albret family, during his childhood, but it was mainly upon his return in 1577 after four years of forced residence at the Louvre following the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre that he made Nérac the capital of his government. From 1577 to 1585, Nérac was the main residence of the King of Navarre, who stayed there for a total of nearly 900 nights between 1577 and 1587.

Henri de Navarre settled in Nérac for various reasons:

His affection for this town and its castle is clear. He has stayed in Nérac many times. He signs his correspondence with European sovereigns, such as Elizabeth^I, Queen of England, "A Nérac," even when he is not residing in the town. He even called himself "the miller of Barbaste" in reference to the Moulin des Tours de Barbaste, where he would stop on his way to his hunting reserve in Durance.
Henri de Navarre felt safe in Nérac because the town was surrounded by long ramparts, which could prove very useful at a time when war essentially consisted of sieges of towns.
A geopolitical reason makes Nérac a city located between three cities in the southwest where Henri de Navarre exercises major political and religious responsibilities: in Bordeaux, he is governor of Guyenne and represents royal authority there; in Pau, he is king of Navarre; in Montauban, he leads the Protestant party. Nérac's privileged position therefore allows him to quickly travel to any of these three cities.
Finally, Nérac symbolizes religious tolerance, allowing his wife and his Catholic comrades-in-arms to practice their faith. To this end, Henri de Navarre had a small chapel built in the Parc de la Garenne and included both Protestants and Catholics in his government council. Henri de Navarre therefore established his court in Nérac rather than Pau, as the capital of Béarn symbolized religious intolerance following the ecclesiastical ordinances of Jeanne d'Albret, who banned Catholicism throughout Béarn.

The Nérac Conferences

Marguerite de Valois, accompanied by her mother Catherine de Medici, reunited with her husband on December 15, 1578, in Nérac. The presence of the Queen of France was the ideal opportunity to establish an era of peace between Catholics and Protestants. In February 1579, the treaty was signed. It was named the "Conferences of Nérac" and was a prelude to the famous Edict of Nantes signed in 1598.

Henri de Navarre, who negotiated directly with the Queen of France and secured favorable terms, including fourteen new places of refuge, thus established himself as the true leader of the Protestant party.

However, Catherine de Medici had come accompanied by the Flying Squadron, a battalion of 300 women, according to Brantôme, among the most beautiful in the kingdom, tasked with obtaining diplomatic advantages from the Protestants... In Nérac, the mansion where part of the treaty was negotiated, located between the former town hall on Rue de l'École and the Church of Saint-Nicolas, was named the Maison des Conférences (House of Conferences).

The abalones of reconciliation

To mark their reunion and seal the reconciliation between Henri of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois, a small costume party was held just before the conferences began, in front of the Saint-Jean fountain, where the "elms of reconciliation," also known as "the twins of La Garenne," were planted. Having survived for several centuries, these trees were cut down in 1971 due to Dutch elm disease...

The beginnings of Vert-galant

In Nérac, the legend of Henri IV's Vert-galant began, an expression referring to men who were successful with women, which saw him set the royal record of 73 official mistresses. One of these stories features Fleurette de Nérac, aged 16, daughter of Henri de Navarre's gardener, who met him in 1572 when he was 19.

Unfortunately, their story would be short-lived, as Henri de Navarre had to travel to Paris that same year to marry Queen Margot. Promising him one last romantic rendezvous in the gardens of Nérac, Fleurette waited patiently for Henri, who was ultimately held up by the festivities surrounding his departure from the Château de Nérac and never returned to see Fleurette again.

Out of spite and grief, Fleurette is said to have ended her life by throwing herself into the Baïse River. In the Parc de la Garenne, a small cave near the Saint-Jean fountain houses a^19th-century marble statue representing Fleurette de Nérac drowned...

Surprisingly, a^16th-century chronicler from Nérac recounts twenty years later "the death of Fleurette, Gardener to the King" in his work on the deaths and births of families of a certain notoriety. It seems that Fleurette never drowned, but was nevertheless loved by Henri de Navarre...

Nérac was a blessed retreat for the royal couple during the troubled times of the Wars of Religion: games, dances, hunts, and romantic intrigues temporarily replaced political intrigues.

But soon the famous adventures of Henri de Navarre and Marguerite de Valois, combined with renewed conspiracies, caused discord between the couple. Margot, who had still not given her husband a child, moved to Agen in 1585, where she joined the League. The breakup was final.

The steps of the throne

Following the death of Henry III in 1589, Henry of Navarre became his legitimate heir thanks to his paternal lineage, which shared a distant ancestor with the Valois: Saint Louis. The Bourbons succeeded the Valois, and Henry of Navarre became Henry IV, the first king of France and Navarre.

Henri IV, a Protestant, then set out to reconquer a predominantly Catholic kingdom, which would only recognize him as its legitimate king in 1593 after he renounced Protestantism and was crowned at Saint-Denis in 1594.