the other hand, the magniloquent Mendoza, who was fond of describing
himself as "so violent and terrible to the French that they wished to be
rid of him," had--as usual--been frightening the poor King, who, after a
futile attempt at dignity, had shrunk before the blusterings of the
ambassador. "This King," said Don Bernardino, "thought that he could
impose, upon me and silence me, by talking loud, but as I didn't talk
softly to him, he has undeceived himself . . . . I have had another
interview with him, and found him softer than silk, and he made me many
caresses, and after I went out, he said that I was a very skilful
minister."

It was the purpose of the League to obtain possession of the King's
person, and, if necessary, to dispose of the 'politiques' by a general
massacre, such as sixteen years before had been so successful in the case
of Coligny and the Huguenots. So the populace--more rabid than ever--were
impatient that their adored Balafre should come to Paris and begin the
holy work.

He came as far as Gonesse to do the job he had promised to Philip, but
having heard that Henry had reinforced himself with four thousand Swiss
from the garrison of Lagny, he fell back to Soissons. The King sent him a
most abject message, imploring him not to expose his sovereign to so much
danger, by setting his foot at that moment in the capital. The Balafre
hesitated, but the populace raved and roared for its darling. The
Queen-Mother urged her unhappy son to yield his consent, and the
Montpensier--fatal sister of Guise, with the famous scissors ever at her
girdle--insisted that her brother had as good a right as any man to come
to the city. Meantime the great chief of the 'politiques,' the hated and
insolent Epernon, had been appointed governor of Normandy, and Henry had
accompanied his beloved minion a part of the way towards Rouen. A plot
contrived by the Montpensier to waylay the monarch on his return, and to
take him into the safe-keeping of the League, miscarried, for the King
reentered the city before the scheme was ripe. On the other hand,
Nicholas Poulain, bought for twenty thousand crowns by the 'politiques,'
gave the King and his advisers-full information of all these intrigues,
and, standing in Henry's cabinet, offered, at peril of his life, if he
might be confronted with the conspirators--the leaders of the League
within the city--to prove the truth of the charges which he had made.

For the whole city was now th