The dilogy of the German writer Heinrich Mann about the French king Henry IV is deservedly considered a masterpiece of historical prose, comparable to the best novels of Alexandre Dumas and Henryk Sienkiewicz. Time and place of action - Europe, the sixteenth century, one of the bloodiest and darkest: civil wars, religious fanaticism, St. Bartholomew's Night, deadly struggle for power... Europe needed a ruler capable of not only extinguishing the flames of war, establishing the long-awaited peace, but also changing the whole the course of history pushing peoples into the bottomless abyss of death. Such a ruler turned out to be King Henry IV of the Bourbon dynasty. Many writers have turned to the life of this great monarch, from Voltaire to Alexandre Dumas, but it was Heinrich Mann who wrote the most fascinating, historically accurate and detailed biography of one of the most popular kings of France. This edition includes the first part of the dilogy about Henry IV, which tells about the growing up and spiritual development of the future monarch, about the adventures and dangers that he was destined to go through on his way to the throne.