The envoy departed.  The king, turning to one of his officers, Colonel Alphonso Corso, said to him, “M. de Guise has just arrived at Paris, contrary to my orders.  What would you do in my place?” “Sir, do you hold the Duke of Guise for friend or enemy?” The king, without speaking, replied by a significant gesture.  “If it please your, Majesty to give me the order, I will this very day lay the duke’s head at your feet.”  The three councillors who happened to be there cried out.  The king held his peace.  During this conversation at the Louvre, the Duke of Guise was advancing along the streets, dressed in a doublet of white damask, a cloak of black cloth, and boots of buffalo-hide; he walked on foot, bareheaded, at the side of the queen-mother in a sedan-chair.  He was tall, with fair clustering hair and piercing eyes; and his scar added to his martial air.  The mob pressed upon his steps; flowers were thrown to him from the windows; some, adoring him as a saint, touched him with chaplets which they afterwards kissed; a young girl darted towards him, and, removing her mask, kissed him, saying, “Brave prince, since you are here, we are all saved.”  Guise, with a dignified air, “saluted and delighted everybody,” says a witness, “with eye, and gesture, and speech.”  “By his side,” said Madame de Retz, “the other princes are commoners.”  “The Huguenots,” said another, “become Leaguers at the very sight of him.”  On arriving at the Louvre, he traversed the court between two rows of soldiers, the archers on duty in the hall, and the forty-five gentlemen of the king’s chamber at the top of the staircase.  “What brings you hither?” said the king, with difficulty restraining his anger.  “I entreat your Majesty to believe in my fidelity, and not allow yourself to go by the reports of my enemies.”  “Did I not command you not to come at this season so full of suspicions, but to wait yet a while?”

“Sir, I was not given to understand that my coming would be disagreeable to you.”  Catherine drew near, and, in a low tone, told her son of the demonstrations of which the duke had been the object on his way.  Guise was received in the chamber of the queen, Louise de Vaudemont, who was confined to her bed by indisposition; he chatted with her a moment, and, saluting the king, retired without being attended by any one of the officers of the court.  Henry III. confined himself to telling him that results should speak for the sincerity of his words.

Guise returned to his house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, still accompanied by an eager and noisy crowd, but somewhat disquieted at heart both by the king’s angry reception and the people’s enthusiastic welcome.  Brave as he was, he was more ambitious in conception than bold in execution, and he had not made up his mind to do all that was necessary to attain the end he was pursuing.  The committee of Sixteen, his confidants, and all the staff of the League, met at his house during the evening and night between