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.