It was the 30th of October, early: and the Duke of Montmorency was sleeping peacefully. His confessor came and awoke him. “_Surgite, eamus_ (rise, let us be going),” he said, as he awoke; and when his surgeon would have dressed his wounds, “Now is the time to heal all my wounds with a single one,” he said, and he had himself dressed in the clothes of white linen he had ordered to be made at Lectoure for the day of execution. When the last questions were put to him by the judges, he answered by a complete confession; and when the decree was made known to him, “I thank you, gentlemen,” said he to the commissioners, “and I beg you to tell all them of your body from me, that I hold this decree of the king’s justice for a decree of God’s mercy.” He walked to the scaffold with the same tranquillity, saluting right and left those whom he knew, to take leave of them; then, having with difficulty placed himself upon the block, so much did his wounds still cause him to suffer, he said out loud, “_Domine Jesu, accipe spiritum meum (Lord Jesus, receive my spirit)!_” As his head fell, the people rushed forward to catch his blood and dip their handkerchiefs in it. Henry de Montmorency was the last of the ducal branch of his house, and was only thirty-seven. It was a fine opportunity for Monsieur to once more break his engagements. Shame and anxiety drove him equally. He was universally reproached with Montmorency’s death; and he was by no means easy on the subject of his marriage, of which no mention had been made in the arrangements. He quitted Tours and withdrew to Flanders, writing to the king to complain of the duke’s execution, saying that the life of the latter had been the tacit condition of his agreement, and that, his promise being thus not binding, he was about to seek a secure retreat out of the kingdom. “Everybody knows in what plight you were, brother, and whether you could have done anything else,” replied the king. “What think you, gentlemen, was it that lost the Duke of Montmorency his head?” said Cardinal Zapata to Bautru and Barrault, envoys of France, whom he met in the antechamber of the King of Spain. “His crimes,” replied Bautru. “No,” said the cardinal, “but the clemency of his Majesty’s predecessors.” Louis XIII. and Cardinal Richelieu have assuredly not merited that, reproach in history. So many and such terrible examples were at last to win the all-powerful minister some years of repose. Once only, in 1636, a new plot on the part of Monsieur and the Count of Soissons threatened not only his power, but his life. The king’s headquarters were established at the castle of Demuin; and the princes, urged on by Montresor and Saint-Ibal, had resolved to compass the cardinal’s death. The blow was to be struck at the exit from the council. Richelieu conducted the king back to the bottom of the staircase. [Illustration: The King and the Cardinal----204]