. His capital just ready to sink exhausted into his hands had
been wrested from his grasp, and was alive with new hope and new
defiance. The League was triumphant, his own army scattering to the four
winds. Even a man of high courage and sagacity might have been in
despair. Yet never were the magnificent hopefulness, the wise audacity of
Henry more signally manifested than now when he seemed most blundering
and most forlorn. His hardy nature ever met disaster with so cheerful a
smile as almost to perplex disaster herself.

Unwilling to relinquish his grip without a last effort, he resolved on a
midnight assault upon Paris. Hoping that the joy at being relieved, the
unwonted feasting which had succeeded the long fasting, and the
consciousness of security from the presence of the combined armies of the
victorious League, would throw garrison and citizens off their guard, he
came into the neighbourhood of the Faubourgs St. Jacques, St. Germain,
St. Marcel, and St. Michel on the night of 9th September. A desperate
effort was made to escalade the walls between St. Jacques and St.
Germain. It was foiled, not by the soldiers nor the citizens, but by the
sleepless Jesuits, who, as often before during this memorable siege, had
kept guard on the ramparts, and who now gave the alarm. The first
assailants were hurled from their ladders, the city was roused, and the
Duke of Nemours was soon on the spot, ordering burning pitch hoops,
atones, and other missiles to be thrown down upon the invaders. The
escalade was baffled; yet once more that night, just before dawn, the
king in person renewed the attack on the Faubourg St. Germain. The
faithful Stafford stood by his side in the trenches, and was witness to
his cool determination, his indomitable hope. La None too was there, and
was wounded in the leg--an accident the results of which were soon to
cause much weeping through Christendom. Had one of those garlands of
blazing tar which all night had been fluttering from the walls of Paris
alighted by chance on the king's head there might have been another
history of France. The ladders, too, proved several feet too short, and
there were too few, of them. Had they been more numerous and longer, the
tale might have been a different one. As it was, the king was forced to
retire with the approaching daylight.

The characteristics of the great commander of the Huguenots and of the
Leaguers' chieftain respectively were well illustrated in sever