“Be assured, _maitre_,” replied Catherine (that being the name which the two kings, Charles IX. and Henri III., gave to the great writer) “that you will not stand on your feet twenty-four hours hence, unless you make your pupil change his mind.” Between the death thus threatened and the resignation of the highest ecclesiastical office in the gift of the crown, the son of the shoemaker, who had lately become extremely eager after honors, and may even have coveted a cardinal’s hat, thought it prudent to temporize. He left the court and hid himself in the abbey of Saint-Germain. When Charles IX. did not see him at his first dinner, he asked where he was. Some Guisard doubtless told him of what had occurred between Amyot and the queen-mother. “Has he been forced to disappear because I made him grand-almoner?” cried the king. He thereupon rushed to his mother in the violent wrath of angry children when their caprices are opposed. “Madame,” he said on entering, “did I not kindly sign the letter you asked me to send to Parliament, by means of which you govern my kingdom? Did you not promise that if I did so my will should be yours? And here, the first favor that I wish to bestow excites your jealousy! The chancellor talks of declaring my majority at fourteen, three years from now, and you wish to treat me as a child. By God, I will be king, and a king as my father and grandfather were kings!” The tone and manner in which these words were said gave Catherine a revelation of her son’s true character; it was like a blow in the breast.