all princes, nobles, or persons whatsoever, to travel with an armed retinue. The Cardinal had a dispensation from the Queen-mother, but he either disdained or neglected to present it to Montmorency. The Marshal was most probably aware of its existence, but he ignored it, and sent word to the Cardinal not to pursue his journey with a forbidden escort. The Cardinal, considering this injunction an affront, heeded it not, and was close to his journey's end, when he was encountered in the streets of Paris, (Rue St Denis), by a body of infantry and cavalry of both religions, under the orders of Montmorency and of the Prince of Portien, who charged and routed his escort; and he himself was compelled to seek safety in the humble dwelling of a rope-maker, dragging with him his nephews, of whom the eldest especially, a pistol in either hand, refused to quit the combat, unequal as it was, and, by recalling his father's memory to the Parisians, already acquired personal partisans. A faithful follower, who would have shut the door upon them, was mortally wounded by the balls which struck the very threshold of the room in which the Princes of Lorraine had taken refuge. '_Seigneur, mon Dieu!_' cried the Cardinal, in this imminent peril, 'if my hour is come, and the power of darkness, spare at least the innocent blood!' Meanwhile the Duke of Aumale, who had entered by the gate of the Louvre, created a diversion, which contributed to appease the tumult of the Rue St Denis; and under cover of night, the prelate, with his nephews and suite, was able to reach his _hôtel de Cluny_."