The Archbishop of Lyons said that their party would do nothing either to frustrate or to support the mission of Pisani, and that the pope would, as ever, do all that could be done to maintain the interests of the true religion.

The Archbishop of Bourges, knowing well the meaning of such fine phrases, replied that he had much respect for the holy father, but that popes had now, become the slaves and tools of the King of Spain, who, because he was powerful, held them subject to his caprice.

At an adjourned meeting at the same place, the Archbishop of Lyons said that all questions had been asked and answered.  All now depended on the pope, whom the League would always obey.  If the pope would accept the reconciliation of the Prince of Bearne it was well.  He, hoped that his conversion would be sincere.

The political archbishop (of Bourges) replied to the League’s archbishop, that there was no time for delays, and for journeys by land and sea to Rome.  The least obstruction might prove fatal to both parties.  Let the Leaguers now show that the serenity of their faces was but the mirror of their minds.

But the Leaguers’ archbishop said that he could make no further advances.  So ended the conference.’

The chiefs of the politicians now went to the king and informed him that the decisive moment had arrived.

Henry had preserved:  his coolness throughout.  Amid all the hubbub of learned doctors of law, archbishops-Leaguer and political-Sorbonne pedants, solemn grandees from Spain with Latin orations in their pockets, intriguing Guises, huckstering Mayennes, wrathful Huguenots, sanguinary cardinal-legates, threatening world-monarchs—­heralded by Spanish musketeers, Italian lancers, and German reiters—­shrill screams of warning from the English queen, grim denunciations from Dutch Calvinists, scornful repulses from the holy father; he kept his temper and his eye-sight, as perfectly as he had ever done through the smoke and din of the wildest battle-field.  None knew better than he how to detect the weakness of the adversary, and to sound the charge upon his wavering line.

He blew the blast—­sure that loyal Catholics and Protestants alike would now follow him pell-mell.

On the 16th, May, 1593, he gave notice that he consented to get himself instructed, and that he summoned an assembly at Mantes on the 15th July, of bishops, theologians, princes, lords, and courts of parliament to hold council, and to advise him what was best to do for religion and the State.

Meantime he returned to the siege of Dreux, made an assault on the place, was repulsed, and then hung nine prisoners of war in full sight of the garrison as a punishment for their temerity in resisting him.  The place soon after capitulated (8th July, 1593).

The interval between the summons and the assembling of the clerical and lay notables at Mantes was employed by the Leaguers in frantic and contradictory efforts to retrieve a game which the most sagacious knew to be lost.  But the politicians were equal to the occasion, and baffled them at every point.