Henri Quatre-Romane, two consecutive historical novels by H. Mann, Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre (1935) and Die Vollendung des Königs Henri Quatre (1938), which have no authorized collective title but make up in effect one great novel. Both were written during Mann's sojourn in France after his flight from Germany in 1933, and the choice of hero, ‘le bon roi Henri IV’, and the relaxed tone reflect the congeniality of Mann's French environment. The Renaissance always had an attraction for him, and in this late novel he gratified it to the full. He made serious historical studies but did not hesitate to depart from known fact where his design demanded it. Among his inventions are Henri's interviews with Montaigne and Montaigne's conversation with Michelangelo. Moreover, Mann plainly hints that these novels are in part a moral commentary on the events of his own day by using words with a contemporary National Socialist ring such as Arbeitsdienst, Wehrpflicht, and Gauleiter, and by implicitly equating the Ligue headed by the Guise family with Hitler's SA.
The two novels cover Henri's lifetime (1553-1610), from childhood to his assassination by Ravaillac. There is no organic separation between the two books. Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre follows his childhood and youth to the eve of kingship in 1589. It shows the humiliations suffered by his mother at the hands of Catherine de Medici (Katharina von Medici) his own compulsory conversion to Roman Catholicism in Paris at the age of 12, and his reversion to Protestantism on his return to the south-west two years later. The world in which he lives is pervaded by savage and merciless intrigue, and his own mother is poisoned, apparently by Catherine. Henri, whose sexual diversions are almost as conspicuous as his goodwill and balanced tolerance, marries Margot, daughter of Catherine. Though he genuinely loves her, he is at all times unable to resist the attraction of a pretty woman.
Mann portrays the feeble reigns of Charles IX and Henri III, and gives a brilliant and graphic description of the horrors of the massacre of St Bartholomew's Day, 1572. Henri's fortunes veer from captivity in Paris (1572-6) to the prospect of succession to the throne, which becomes a fact when Henri III, who has brought about the murder of the hostile Duc de Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, is himself assassinated. The first novel closes with Henri's victories at Dieppe and Arques, but with no certainty that the opposition of the Ligue is destroyed.
In Die Vollendung des Königs Henri Quatre Henri is converted to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure the throne for himself, but he desires the crown, not from ambition, but for the tolerance, unity, and goodwill which he can offer the people of France. He is crowned at Chartres and, with the assistance of Sully and Mornay, rules wisely. The climax of his reign is the great decree of tolerance, the Edict of Nantes (1598), which officially terminates sectarian conflict. Included in this novel are further love affairs, of which the most notable is with Gabrielle d'Estrées. Numerous attempts at assassination culminate in Henri's murder by Ravaillac, a tragedy which provokes a great demonstration of popular affection and grief.
The two novels are arranged, not in numbered chapters, but in sections and sub-sections. In Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre each of the nine sections is concluded by a moralité in French, summarizing the situation, and two of the nine are addressed to Henri himself. Die Vollendung des Henri Quatre has no such reminders, but its end is immediately followed by a speech; Henri makes it while experiencing a vision in which he stands erect upon a cloud. It is addressed to Mann's own fellow-men during the National Socialist regime, is spoken in French, and bears the heading Allocution d'Henri quatrième, Roi de France et de Navarre, du haut d'un nuage qui le démasque pendant l'espace d'un éclair, puis se referme sur lui. This speech, couched in sober rhetoric, is a moralité for the whole work.
The combined Henri Quatre novels are generally held to be Heinrich Mann's masterpiece, more positive and balanced than anything he wrote before or after, displaying his hatred of evil, but revealing an appreciation of kindness and a stress on tolerance which are not elsewhere united in his work. In the figure of the gentle, civilized Montaigne and in his (fictitious) relationship with Henri, this pervasive harmony is especially emphasized. The active moralist prevails over the negative satirist.
