anger.
"I entreat your Majesty to believe in my fidelity, and not allow yourself
to go by the reports of my enemies." "Did I not command you not to come
at this season so full of suspicions, but to wait yet a while?"

"Sir, I was not given to understand that my coming would be disagreeable
to you." Catherine drew near, and, in a low tone, told her son of the
demonstrations of which the duke had been the object on his way. Guise
was received in the chamber of the queen, Louise de Vaudemont, who was
confined to her bed by indisposition; he chatted with her a moment, and,
saluting the king, retired without being attended by any one of the
officers of the court. Henry III. confined himself to telling him that
results should speak for the sincerity of his words.

Guise returned to his house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, still
accompanied by an eager and noisy crowd, but somewhat disquieted at heart
both by the king's angry reception and the people's enthusiastic welcome.
Brave as he was, he was more ambitious in conception than bold in
execution, and he had not made up his mind to do all that was necessary
to attain the end he was pursuing. The committee of Sixteen, his
confidants, and all the staff of the League, met at his house during the
evening and night between the 9th and 10th of May, preparing for the
morrow's action without well knowing what it was to be, proposing various
plans, collecting arms, and giving instructions to their agents amongst
the populace. An agitation of the same sort prevailed at the Louvre; the
king, too, was deliberating with his advisers as to what he should do on
the morrow: Guise would undoubtedly present himself at his morning levee;
should he at once rid himself of him by the poniards of the five and
forty bravoes which the Duke of Epernon had enrolled in Gascony for his
service? Or would it be best to summon to Paris some troops, French and
Swiss, to crush the Parisian rebels and the adventurers that had hurried
up from all parts to their aid? But on the 10th of May, Guise went to
the Louvre with four hundred gentlemen well armed with breastplates and
weapons under their cloaks. The king did nothing; no more did Guise.
The two had a long conversation in the queen-mother's garden; but it led
to no result. On the 11th of May, in the evening, the provost of
tradesmen, Hector de Perreuse, assembled the town-council and those of
the district-colonels on whom he had reliance to receiv