illed his fellow." Guise
himself was no stranger to this idea. "We are not without warnings from
all quarters that there is a design of attempting my life," he wrote on
the 21st of September, 1588: "but I have, thank God, so provided against
it, both by the gathering I have made of a good number of my friends, and
in having, by presents and money, secured a portion of those whose
services are relied upon for the execution of it, that, if once things
begin, I shall finish more roughly than I did at Paris."

After the opening of the states-general and the success he obtained
thereat, Guise appeared, if not more anxious, at any rate more attentive
to the warnings he received. On the 10th of December, 1588, he wrote to
Commander Moreo, confidential agent from the King of Spain to him, "You
cannot imagine what alarms have been given me since your departure. I
have so well provided against them that my enemies have not seen their
way to attempting anything. . . . But expenses have grown upon me to
such an extent that I have great need of your prompt assistance. . . .
I have now so much credit with this assembly that I have hitherto made it
dance to my tune, and I hope that as to what remains to be decreed I
shall be quite able to maintain the same authority." Some of his
partisans advised him to go away for a while to Orleans; but he
absolutely refused, repeating, with the Archbishop of Lyons, "He who
leaves the game loses it." One evening, in a little circle of intimates,
on the 21st of December, a question arose whether it would not be
advisable to prevent the king's designs by striking at his person. The
Cardinal of Guise begged his brother to go away, assuring him that his
own presence would suffice for the direction of affairs: but, "They are
in such case, my friend," said the Balafre, "that, if I saw death coming
in at the window, I would not consent to go out by the door to avoid it."
His cousin, the Duke of Elbeuf, paid him a visit at night to urge him to
withdraw himself from the plot hatched against him. "If it were
necessary to lose my life in order to reap the proximate fruits of the
states' good resolution," said Guise, "that is what I have quite made up
my mind to. Though I had a hundred lives, I would devote them all to the
service of God and His church, and to the relief of the poor people for
whom I feel the greatest pity;" then, touching the Duke of Elbeuf upon
the shoulder, he said, "Go to be