Fontainebleau, and their hostility to the Guises had been
openly shown during and since that absence. Nothing was left untried to
attract them, not to Meaux any longer, but to Orleans, whither the
meeting of the states-general had been transferred. King Francis II.,
a docile instrument in the hands of his uncles and his young queen their
niece, wrote letter after letter to the King of Navarre, urging him to
bring with him his brother the Prince of Conde to clear himself of the
accusations brought against him "by these miserable heretics, who made
marvellous charges against him. . . . Conde would easily prove the
falsity of the assertions made by these rascals." The King of Navarre
still hesitated; the king insisted haughtily. "I should be sorry," he
wrote on the 30th of August, 1560, "that into the heart of a person of
such good family, and one that touches me so nearly, so miserable an
inclination should have entered; being able to assure you that
whereinsoever he refuses to obey me I shall know perfectly well how to
make it felt that I am king." The Prince of Conde's mother-in-law, the
Countess of Roye, wrote to the queen-mother that the prince would appear
at court if the king commanded it; but she begged her beforehand not to
think it strange if, on going to a place where his most cruel enemies had
every power, he went attended by his friends. Whether she really were,
or only pretended to be, shocked at what looked like a threat, Catherine
replied that no person in France had a right to approach the king in any
other wise than with his ordinary following, and that, if the Prince of
Conde went to court with a numerous escort, he would find the king still
better attended. At last the King of Navarre and his brother made up
their minds. How could they elude formal orders? Armed resistance had
become the only possible resource, and the Prince of Conde lacked means
to maintain it; his scarcity of money was such that, in order to procure
him a thousand gold crowns, his mother-in-law had been obliged to pledge
her castle of Germany to the Constable de Montmorency. In spite of fears
and remonstrances on the part of their most sincere friends, the two
chiefs of the house of Bourbon left their homes and set out for Orleans.
On their arrival before Poitiers, great was their surprise: the governor,
Montpezat, shut the gates against them as public enemies. They were on
the point of abruptly retracing their steps; but