But expenses have grown upon me to such an extent that I have great need of your prompt assistance.

.

.

.
I have now so much credit with this assembly that I have hitherto made it dance to my tune, and I hope that as to what remains to be decreed I shall be quite able to maintain the same authority." Some of his partisans advised him to go away for a while to Orleans; but he absolutely refused, repeating, with the Archbishop of Lyons, "He who leaves the game loses it." One evening, in a little circle of intimates, on the 21st of December, a question arose whether it would not be advisable to prevent the king's designs by striking at his person.

The Cardinal of Guise begged his brother to go away, assuring him that his own presence would suffice for the direction of affairs: but, "They are in such case, my friend," said the Balafre, "that, if I saw death coming in at the window, I would not consent to go out by the door to avoid it." His cousin, the Duke of Elbeuf, paid him a visit at night to urge him to withdraw himself from the plot hatched against him.