still held out, and Montluc carried it at the head of his men.  Guise rushed up and threw his arm round the warrior’s neck, saying, “Monseigneur, I now see clearly that the old proverb is quite infallible:  ‘A good horse will go to the last.’  I am off at once to my quarters to report the capture to the king.  Be assured that I shall not conceal from him the service you have done.”  The reduction of Thionville was accomplished on that very day, June 22, 1558.  That of Arlon, a rich town in the neighborhood, followed very closely.  Guise, thoroughly worn out, had ordered the approaches to be made next morning at daybreak, requesting that he might be left to sleep until he awoke of himself; when he did awake, he inquired whether the artillery had yet opened fire; he was told that Montluc had surprised the place during the night.  “That is making the pace very fast,” said he, as he made the sign of the cross; but he did not care to complain about it.  Under the impulse communicated by him the fortunes of France were reviving everywhere.  A check received before Gravelines, on the 13th of July, 1558, by a division commanded by De Termes, governor of Calais, did not subdue the national elation and its effect upon the enemy themselves.  “It is an utter impossibility for me to keep up the war,” wrote Philip II., on the 15th of February, 1559, to Granvelle.  On both sides there was a desire for peace; and conferences were opened at Cateau-Cambresis.  On the 6th of February, 1559, a convention was agreed upon for a truce which was to last during the whole course of the negotiation, and for six days after the separation of the plenipotentiaries, in case no peace took place.

It was concluded on the 2d of April, 1559, between Henry II. and Elizabeth, who had become Queen of England at the death of her sister Mary (November 17, 1558); and next day, April 3, between Henry II., Philip II., and the allied princes of Spain, amongst others the Prince of Orange, William the Silent, who, whilst serving in the Spanish army, was fitting himself to become the leader of the Reformers, and the liberator of the Low Countries.  By the treaty with England, France was to keep Calais for eight years in the first instance, and on a promise to pay five hundred thousand gold crowns to Queen Elizabeth or her successors.  The money was never paid, and Calais was never restored, and this without the English government’s having considered that it could make the matter a motive for renewing the war.  By the treaty with Spain, France was to keep Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and have back Saint-Quentin, Le Catelet, and Ham; but she was to restore to Spain or her allies a hundred and eighty-nine places in Flanders, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Corsica.  The malcontents—­for the absence of political liberty does not suppress them entirely—­raised their voices energetically against this last treaty signed by the king, with the sole desire, it was supposed, of obtaining the liberation of his two favorites,