nd just as he leaned down to
raise the tapestry that covered it, Guise was struck five poniard blows
in the chest, neck, and reins. "God ha' mercy!" he cried, and, though
his sword was entangled in his cloak, and he was himself pinned by the
arms and legs and choked by the blood that spurted from his throat, he
dragged his murderers, by a supreme effort of energy, to the other end of
the room, where he fell down backwards and lifeless before the bed of
Henry III., who, coming to the door of his room and asking "if it was
done," contemplated with mingled satisfaction and terror the inanimate
body of his mighty rival, "who seemed to be merely sleeping, so little
was he changed." "My God! how tall he is!" cried the king; "he looks
even taller than when he was alive."

[Illustration: Henry III. and the Murder of Guise----437]

"They are killing my brother!" cried the Cardinal of Guise, when he heard
the noise that was being made in the next room; and he rose up to run
thither. The Archbishop of Lyons, Peter d'Espinac, did the same. The
Duke of Aumont held them both back, saying, "Gentlemen, we must wait for
the king's orders." Orders came to arrest them both, and confine them in
a small room over the council-chamber. They had "eggs, bread, wine from
the king's cellar, their breviaries, their night-gowns, a palliasse, and
a mattress," brought to them there; and they were kept under ocular
supervision for four and twenty hours. The Cardinal of Guise was
released the next morning, but only to be put to death like his brother.
The king spared the Archbishop of Lyons.

"I am sole king," said Henry III. to his ministers, as he entered the
council-chamber; and shortly afterwards, going to see the queen-mother,
who was ill of the gout, "How do you feel?" he asked. "Better," she
answered. "So do I," replied the king: "I feel much better; this morning
I have become King of France again; the King of Paris is dead." "You
have had the Duke of Guise killed?" asked Catherine "have you reflected
well? God grant that you become not king of nothing at all. I hope the
cutting is right; now for the sewing." According to the majority of the
historians, Catherine had neither been in the secret nor had anything to
do with the preparations for the measure. Granted that she took no
active part in it, and that she avoided even the appearance of having any
previous knowledge of it; she was not fond of responsibility, and she
liked b