ceived was his committal to absolutely solitary confinement and the
withdrawal of his servants. The King of Navarre vainly asked to have his
brother's custody confided to him; he obtained nothing but a coarse
refusal; and he himself, separated from his escort, was kept under ocular
supervision in his apartment."

The trial of the Prince of Conde commenced immediately. He was brought
before the privy council. He claimed, as a prince of the blood and
knight of the order of St. Michael, his right to be tried only by the
court of Parliament furnished with the proper complement of peers and
knights of the order. This latter safeguard was worth nothing in his
case, for there had been created, just lately, eighteen new knights, all
friends and creatures of the Guises. His claim, however, was rejected;
and he repeated it, at the same time refusing to reply to any
interrogation, and appealing "from the king ill advised to the king
better advised." A priest was sent to celebrate mass in his chamber: but
"I came," said he, "to clear myself from the calumnies alleged against
me, which is of more consequence to me than hearing mass." He did not
attempt to conceal his antipathy towards the Guises, and the part he had
taken in the hostilities directed against them. An officer, to whom
permission had been given to converse with him in presence of his
custodians, told him "that an appointment (accommodation) with the Duke
of Guise would not be an impossibility for him." "Appointment between
him and me!" answered Conde: "it can only be at the point of the lance."
The Duchess Renee of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII., having come to
France at this time, went to Orleans to pay her respects to the king.
The Duke of Guise was her son-in-law, and she reproached him bitterly
with Conde's trial. "You have just opened," said she, "a wound which
will bleed a long while; they who have dared to attack persons of the
blood royal have always found it a bad job." The prince asked to see, in
the presence of such persons as the king might appoint, his wife, Eleanor
of Roye, who, from the commencement of the trial, "solicited this favor
night and day, often throwing herself on her knees before the king with
tears incredible; but the Cardinal of Lorraine, fearing lest his Majesty
should be moved with compassion, drove away the princess most rudely,
saying that, if she had her due, she would herself be placed in the
lowest dungeon." For them of G