to attract them, not to Meaux any longer, but to Orleans, whither the meeting of the states-general had been transferred.  King Francis II., a docile instrument in the hands of his uncles and his young queen their niece, wrote letter after letter to the King of Navarre, urging him to bring with him his brother the Prince of Conde to clear himself of the accusations brought against him “by these miserable heretics, who made marvellous charges against him. . . .  Conde would easily prove the falsity of the assertions made by these rascals.”  The King of Navarre still hesitated; the king insisted haughtily.  “I should be sorry,” he wrote on the 30th of August, 1560, “that into the heart of a person of such good family, and one that touches me so nearly, so miserable an inclination should have entered; being able to assure you that whereinsoever he refuses to obey me I shall know perfectly well how to make it felt that I am king.”  The Prince of Conde’s mother-in-law, the Countess of Roye, wrote to the queen-mother that the prince would appear at court if the king commanded it; but she begged her beforehand not to think it strange if, on going to a place where his most cruel enemies had every power, he went attended by his friends.  Whether she really were, or only pretended to be, shocked at what looked like a threat, Catherine replied that no person in France had a right to approach the king in any other wise than with his ordinary following, and that, if the Prince of Conde went to court with a numerous escort, he would find the king still better attended.  At last the King of Navarre and his brother made up their minds.  How could they elude formal orders?  Armed resistance had become the only possible resource, and the Prince of Conde lacked means to maintain it; his scarcity of money was such that, in order to procure him a thousand gold crowns, his mother-in-law had been obliged to pledge her castle of Germany to the Constable de Montmorency.  In spite of fears and remonstrances on the part of their most sincere friends, the two chiefs of the house of Bourbon left their homes and set out for Orleans.  On their arrival before Poitiers, great was their surprise:  the governor, Montpezat, shut the gates against them as public enemies.  They were on the point of abruptly retracing their steps; but Montpezat had ill understood his instructions; he ought to have kept an eye upon the Bourbons without displaying any bad disposition towards them, so long as they prosecuted their journey peacefully; the object was, on the contrary, to heap upon them marks of respect, and neglect nothing to give them confidence.  Marshal de Termes, despatched in hot haste, went to open the gates of Poitiers to the princes, and receive them there with the honors due to them.  They resumed their route, and arrived on the 30th of October at Orleans.