But as soon as the treasury began to run low the nobles began a worse work, Mary had thought to buy their loyalty; but when they had gained such treasures, their ideas mounted higher.  A saying of one among them became their formula, and became noted:—­“The day of Kings is past; now is come the day of the Grandees.”

Every great noble now tried to grasp some strong fortress or rich city.  One fact will show the spirit of many.  The Duke of Epernon had served Henry as Governor of Metz, and Metz was the most important fortified town in France; therefore Henry, while allowing D’Epernon the honor of the Governorship, had always kept a Royal Lieutenant in the citadel, who corresponded directly with the Ministry.  But, on the very day of the King’s death, D’Epernon despatched commands to his own creatures at Metz to seize the citadel, and to hold it for him against all other orders.

But at last even Mary had to refuse to lavish more of the national treasure and to shred more of the national territory among these magnates.  Then came their rebellion.

Immediately Conde and several great nobles issued a proclamation denouncing the tyranny and extravagance of the Court,—­calling on the Catholics to rise against the Regent in behalf of their religion,—­calling on the Protestants to rise in behalf of theirs,—­summoning the whole people to rise against the waste of their State treasure.

It was all a glorious joke.  To call on the Protestants was wondrous impudence, for Conde had left their faith, and had persecuted them; to call on the Catholics was not less impudent, for he had betrayed their cause scores of times; but to call on the whole people to rise in defence of their treasury was impudence sublime, for no man had besieged the treasury more persistently, no man had dipped into it more deeply, than Conde himself.

The people saw this and would not stir.  Conde could rally only a few great nobles and their retainers, and therefore, as a last tremendous blow at the Court, he and his followers raised the cry that the Regent must convoke the States-General.

Any who have read much in the history of France, and especially in the history of the French Revolution, know, in part, how terrible this cry was.  By the Court, and by the great privileged classes of France, this great assembly of the three estates of the realm was looked upon as the last resort amid direst calamities.  For at its summons came stalking forth from the foul past the long train of Titanic abuses and Satanic wrongs; then came surging up from the seething present the great hoarse cry of the people; then loomed up, dim in the distance, vast shadowy ideas of new truth and new right; and at the bare hint of these, all that was proud in France trembled.

This cry for the States-General, then, brought the Regent to terms at once, and, instead of acting vigorously, she betook herself to her old vicious fashion of compromising,—­buying off the rebels at prices more enormous than ever.  By her treaty of Sainte-Menehould, Conde received half a million of livres, and his followers received payments proportionate to the evil they had done.