[Illustration:  The Castle of Blois——­428]

The states-general met at Blois on the 16th of October, 1588.  They numbered five hundred and five deputies; one hundred and ninety-one of the third estate, one hundred and eighty of the noblesse, one hundred and thirty-four of the clergy.  The king had given orders “to conduct each deputy as they arrived to his cabinet, that he might see, hear, and know them all personally.”  When the five hundred and five deputies had taken their places in the hall, the Duke of Guise went to fetch the king, who made his entry attended by the princes of the blood, and opened the session with the dignity and easy grace which all the Valois seemed to have inherited from Francis I. The Duke of Guise, in a coat of white satin, was seated at the king’s feet, as high steward of his household, scanning the whole assembly with his piercing glance, as if to keep watch over those who were in his service.  “He seemed,” says a contemporary, “by a single flash of his eye to fortify them in the hope of the advancement of his designs; his fortunes, and his greatness, and to say to them, without speaking, I see you.”  The king’s speech was long, able, well delivered, and very much applauded, save by Guise himself and his particular friends; the firmness of tone had displeased them, and one sentence excited in them a discontent which they had found difficulty in restraining:  certain grandees of my kingdom have formed such leagues and associations as, in every well-ordered monarchy, are crimes of high treason, without the sovereign’s permission.  But, showing my wonted indulgence, I am quite willing to let bygones be bygones in this respect.  Guise grew pale at these words.  On leaving the royal session, he got his private committee to decide that the Cardinal of Guise and the Archbishop of Lyons should go to see the king, and beg him to abandon the printing of his speech, and meanwhile Guise himself sent to the printer’s to stop the immediate publication.  Discussion took place next day in the king’s cabinet; and a threat was held out to him that a portion of the deputies would quit the meeting of states.  The queen-mother advised her son to compromise.  The king yielded, according to his custom, and gave authority for cutting out the strongest expressions, amongst others those just quoted.  “The correction was accordingly made,” says M. Picot, the latest and most able historian of the states-general, “and Henry III. had to add this new insult to all that were rankling at the bottom of his heart since the affair of the Barricades.”

This was, for the Duke of Guise, a first trial of his power, and great was his satisfaction at this first success.  On leaving the opening session of the states-general, he wrote to the Spanish ambassador Mendoza, “I handled our states so well that I made them resolve to require confirmation of the edict of union (of July 21 preceding) as fundamental law of the state.  The king refused to do so, in rather sharp terms, to the deputies who brought the representation before him, and from that it is presumed that he inclines towards a peace with the heretics.  But, at last, he was so pressed by the states, the which were otherwise on the point of breaking up, that he promised to swear the edict and have it sworn before entering upon consideration of any matter.”