e every concession that was possible to avoid
the enmity of the Guise faction. He consented, and was lost, for the
Huguenots sprang to arms, and he found that he was to be driven from
his capital by the Guises.

The King was accused of sympathy with the Protestant cause, which made
his name odious to the Catholic University of Paris. He had personal
enemies too, such as the Duchess of Montpensier, sister to Henry of
Guise, who was fond of saying that she would give him another crown by
using the gold scissors at her waist. There was some talk of his
entering a monastery where he would have had to adopt the tonsure.

One-half of Navarre's beard had turned white when he heard that Henry
III was revoking the Edicts of Toleration. Yet he was happiest in
camp, and leapt to the saddle with a light heart in May 1588 when the
{112} King fled from Paris and Guise entered the capital as the
deliverer of the people. He looked the model of a Gascon knight, with
hooked nose and bold, black eyes under ironical arched eyebrows. He
was a clever judge of character, and knew how to win adherents to his
cause. His homely garb attracted many who were tired of the weak
Valois kings, for there was no artificial grace in the scarlet cloak,
brown velvet doublet and white-plumed hat which distinguished him from
his fellows.

Henry III plotted desperately to regain his prestige, and showed some
of the Medici guile in a plot for Guise's assassination. When this
succeeded he went to boast to Catherine that he had killed the King of
Paris. "You have cut boldly into the stuff, my son," she answered him,
"but will you know how to sew it together?"

Paris was filled by lamentations for the death of Guise, and the
festivities of Christmas Eve gave way to funeral dirges. The
University of Sorbonne declared that they would not receive Henry of
Valois again as king. His only hope was to reconcile himself with
Navarre and the Protestant party. Paris was tumultuous with resistance
when the news came that Royalists and Huguenots had raised their
standards in the same camp and massed two armies. The Catholic League
was beloved by the poorer citizens because it released them from
rent-dues. The spirit of the people was shown by processions of
children, who threw lighted torches to the ground before the churches,
stamped on them, and cried, "Thus may God quench the House of Valois!"

The capital welcomed Spanish troops to aid them in keeping