title: Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France
author:  Amy G. Remensnyder 
description: Amy G. Remensnyder is Stephen Robert Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor of History at Brown University.
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  # The King's Stratagem
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### STANLEY J. WEYMAN
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
      
  
  Etext from weymanforever
  
  
  IN the days when Henry IV of France was King of Navarre only, and in
  
  
  that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the southwest
  
  
  corner of the larger country, was with difficulty supporting the
  
  
  Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic League—in the
  
  
  days when every isolated castle, from the Garonne to the Pyrenees, was
  
  
  a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty
  
  
  queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these notable
  
  
  personages took place in the picturesque town of La Reole.
  
  
  La Reole still rises gray, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty
  
  
  cliff above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from
  
  
  Bordeaux. But it is a small place now. In the days of which we are
  
  
  speaking, however, it was important,