see him "out of pure friendship," they told him, "and not
to exhort him to endure his mishap with patience: we know that you will
not lack patience." "I do protest to you," said Coligny, "that death
affrights me not; it is of God that I hold my life; when He requires it
back from me, I am quite ready to give it up. But I should very much
like to see the king before I die; I have to speak to him of things which
concern his person and the welfare of his state, and which I feel sure
none of you would dare to tell him of." "I will go and inform his
Majesty, . . ." rejoined Damville; and he went out with Villars and
Teligny, leaving Marshal de Cosse in the room. "Do you remember," said
Coligny to him, "the warnings I gave you a few hours ago? You will do
well to take your precautions."

About two P. M., the king, the queen-mother, and the Dukes of Anjou and
Alencon, her two other sons, with many of their high officers, repaired
to the admiral's. "My dear father," said the king, as he went in, "the
hurt is yours; the grief and the outrage mine; but I will take such
vengeance that it shall never be forgotten;" to which he added his usual
imprecations. "Then the admiral, who lay in bed sorely wounded," says
the Duke of Anjou himself, in his account of this interview, "requested
that he might speak privately to the king, which the king granted
readily, making a sign to the queen my mother, and to me, to withdraw,
which we did incontinently into the middle of the room, where we remained
standing during this secret colloquy, which caused us great misgiving.
We saw ourselves surrounded by more than two hundred gentlemen and
captains of the admiral's party, who were in the room and another
adjoining, and, besides, in a ball below, the which, with sad faces and
the gestures and bearing of malcontents, were whispering in one another's
ears, frequently passing and repasssing before and behind us, not with so
much honor and respect as they ought to have done, and as if they had
some suspicion that we had somewhat to do with the admiral's hurt. We
were seized with astonishment and fear at seeing ourselves shut in there,
as my mother has since many times confessed to me, saying that she had
never been in any place where there was so much cause for fright, and
whence she had gone away with more relief and pleasure. This
apprehension caused us to speedily break in upon the conversation the
admiral was having with the king, under