at the same time, however, continually resuming and prolonging the
discussion. One of the duke's most trusty confidants, Francis de
Mainville, entered and whispered in his ear. "Madame," cried the duke,
"whilst your Majesty has been amusing me here, the king is off from Paris
to harry me and destroy me!" Henry III., indeed, had taken horse at the
Tuileries, and, attended by his principal councillors, unbooted and
cloakless, had issued from the New gate, and set out on the road to St.
Cloud. Equipping him in haste, his squire, Du Halde, had put his spur on
wrong, and would have set it right, but, "That will do," said the king;
"I am not going to see my mistress; I have a longer journey to make." It
is said that the corps on guard at the Nesle gate fired from a distance a
salute of arquebuses after the fugitive king, and that a crowd assembled
on the other bank of the river shouted insults after him. At the height
of Chaillot Henry pulled up, and turning round towards Paris, "Ungrateful
city," he cried, "I have loved thee more than my own wife; I will not
enter thy walls again but by the breach."

It is said that on hearing of the Duke of Guise's sudden arrival at
Paris, Pope Sixtus V. exclaimed, "Ah! what rashness! To thus go and put
himself in the hands of a prince he has so outraged!" And some days
afterwards, on the news that the king had received the Duke of Guise and
nothing had come of it, "Ah, dastard prince! poor creature of a prince,
to have let such a chance escape him of getting rid of a man who seems
born to be his destruction!" [_De Thou,_ t. x. p. 266.]

When the king was gone, Guise acted the master in Paris. He ordered the
immediate delivery into his hands of the Bastille, the arsenal, and the
castle of Vincennes. Ornano, governor of the Bastille, sent an offer to
the king, who had arrived at Chartres, to defend it to the last
extremity. "I will not expose to so certain a peril a brave man who may
be necessary to me elsewhere," replied the king. Guise caused to be
elected at Paris a new town-council and a new provost of tradesmen, all
taken from amongst the most ardent Leaguers. He at the same time exerted
himself to restore order; he allowed all royalists who wished to depart
to withdraw to Chartres; he went in person and pressed the premier
president of Parliament, Achille de Harlay, to resume the course of
justice. "It is great pity, sir," said Harlay, "when the servant drives
out the m