put upon his trial; the four others were for a shorter and a surer process, that of putting the duke to death by a sudden blow.  He is evidently making war upon the king, they said; and the king has a right to defend himself.  Henry III., who had his mind made up, asked Crillon, commandant of the regiment of guards, “Think you that the Duke of Guise deserves death?” “Yes, sir.”  “Very well; then I choose you to give it him.”  “I am ready to challenge him.”  “That is not what is wanted; as leader of the League, he is guilty of high treason.”  “Very well, sir; then let him be tried and executed.”  “But, Crillon, nothing is less certain than his conviction in a court of law; he must be struck down unexpectedly.”  “Sir, I am a soldier, not an assassin.”  The king did not persist, but merely charged Crillon, who promised, to keep the proposal secret.  At this very time Guise was requesting the king to give him a constable’s grand provost and archers to form his guard in his quality of lieutenant-general of the kingdom.  The king deferred his reply.  Catherine de’ Medici supported the Lorrainer prince’s request.  “In two or three days it shall be settled,” said Henry.  He had ordered twelve poniards from an armorer’s in the city; on the 21st of December he told his project to Loignac, an officer of his guards, who was less scrupulous than Crillon, and undertook to strike the blow, in concert with the forty-five trusty guards.  At the council on the 22d of December, the king announced his intention of passing Christmas in retreat at Notre-Dame de Cleri, and he warned the members of the council that next day the session would take place very early in order to dispose of business before his departure.  On the evening of the 22d, the Duke of Guise, on sitting down at table, found under his napkin a note to this effect:  “The king means to kill you.”  Guise asked for a pen, wrote at the bottom of the note, “He dare not,” and threw it under the table.  Next day, December 23, Henry III., rising at four A. M., after a night of great agitation, admitted into his cabinet by a secret staircase the nine guards he had chosen, handed them the poniards he had ordered, placed them at the post where they were to wait for the meeting of the council, and bade Charles d’Entragues to go and request one of the royal chaplains “to say mass, that God might give the king grace to be able to carry out an enterprise which he hoped would come to an issue within an hour, and on which the safety of France depended.”  Then the king retired into his closet.  The members of the council arrived in succession; it is said that one of the archers on duty, when he saw the Duke of Guise mounting the staircase, trod on his foot, as if to give him warning; but, if he observed it, Guise made no account of it, any more than of all the other hints he had already received.  Before entering the council-chamber, he stopped at a small oratory connected with the chapel, said his prayer,