The king had given orders "to conduct each deputy as they arrived to his cabinet, that he might see, hear, and know them all personally." When the five hundred and five deputies had taken their places in the hall, the Duke of Guise went to fetch the king, who made his entry attended by the princes of the blood, and opened the session with the dignity and easy grace which all the Valois seemed to have inherited from Francis I.

The Duke of Guise, in a coat of white satin, was seated at the king's feet, as high steward of his household, scanning the whole assembly with his piercing glance, as if to keep watch over those who were in his service.

"He seemed," says a contemporary, "by a single flash of his eye to fortify them in the hope of the advancement of his designs; his fortunes, and his greatness, and to say to them, without speaking, I see you." The king's speech was long, able, well delivered, and very much applauded, save by Guise himself and his particular friends; the firmness of tone had displeased them, and one sentence excited in them a discontent which they had found difficulty in restraining: certain grandees of my kingdom have formed such leagues and associations as, in every well-ordered monarchy, are crimes of high treason, without the sovereign's permission.

But, showing my wonted indulgence, I am quite willing to let bygones be bygones in this respect.
Guise grew pale at these words.

On leaving the royal session, he got his private committee to decide that the Cardinal of Guise and the Archbishop of Lyons should go to see the king, and beg him to abandon the printing of his speech, and meanwhile Guise himself sent to the printer's to stop the immediate publication.