jou. His departure was fixed for the 3d of
February, 1576. He went and slept at Senlis; hunted next day very early,
and, on his return from hunting, finding his horses baited and ready,
"What news?" he asked. "Sir," said D'Aubigne, "we are betrayed; the king
knows all; the road to death and shame is Paris; that to life and glory
is anywhere else." "That is more than enough; away!" replied Henry.
They rode all night, and arrived without misadventure at Alencon. Two
hundred and fifty gentlemen, having been apprised in time, went thither
to join the King of Navarre. He pursued his road in their company. From
Senlis to the Loire he was silent but when he had crossed the river,
"Praised be God, who has delivered me!" he cried; "at Paris they were the
death of my mother; there they killed the admiral and my best servants;
and they had no mind to do any better by me, if God had not had me in his
keeping. I return thither no more unless I am dragged. I regret only
two things that I have left behind at Paris--mass and my wife. As for
mass, I will try to do without it; but as for my wife, I cannot; I mean
to see her again." He disavowed the appearances of Catholicism he had
assumed, again made open profession of Protestantism by holding at the
baptismal font, in the conventicle, the daughter of a physician amongst
his friends. Then he reached Bearn, declaring that he meant to remain
there independent and free. A few days before his departure he had
written to one of his Bearnese friends, "The court is the strangest you
ever saw. We are almost always ready to cut one another's throats. We
wear daggers, shirts of mail, and very often the whole cuirass under the
cape. I am only waiting for the opportunity to deliver a little battle,
for they tell me they will kill me, and I want to be beforehand."
Mesdames de Carnavalet and de Sauve, two of his fair friends, had warned
him that, far from giving him the lieutenant-generalship, which had been
so often promised him, it had been decided to confer this office on the
king's brother, in order to get him back to court and seize his person as
soon as he arrived.

It was the increasing preponderance of the Guises, at court as well as in
the country, which caused the two princes to take this sudden resolution.
Since Henry III.'s coming to the throne, war had gone on between the
Catholics and the Protestants, but languidly and with frequent
suspensions through local and shortlive