The cruel repression of this "conspiracy of Amboise" inspired bitter hatred of the Guises, since they were avenging a rising rather against their own than the royal authority. They now entrenched themselves with the king at Orleans, and the Bourbon princes, Anthony, king of Navarre, and his brother Conde, were summoned to court. The Guises convened a special commission to try Conde, who was condemned to death; but the affair was postponed by the chancellor, and the death of Francis II. in December saved Conde. Guise then made common cause with his old rival Montmorency and with the Marshal de Saint Andre against Catherine, the Bourbons and Coligny. This alliance, constituted on the 6th of April 1561, and known as the triumvirate, aimed at the annulment of the concessions made by Catherine to the Huguenots. The cardinal of Lorraine fomented the discord which appeared between the clergy of the two religions when they met at the colloquy of Poissy in 1561, but in spite of the extreme Catholic views he there professed, he was at the time in communication with the Lutheran princes of Germany, and in February 1562 met the duke of Wurttemberg at Zabern to discuss the possibility of a religious compromise. The signal for civil war was given by an attack of Guise's escort on a Huguenot congregation at Vassy (1st of March 1562). Although Guise did not initiate the massacre, and although, when he learned what was going on, he even tried to restrain his soldiers, he did not disavow their action. When Catherine de' Medici forbade his entry into Paris, he accepted the challenge, and on the 16th of March he entered the city, where he was a popular hero, at the head of 2000 armed nobles. The provost of the merchants offered to put 20,000 men and two million livres at his disposal. In September he joined Montmorency in besieging Rouen, which was sacked as if it had been a foreign city, in spite of Guise's efforts to save it from the worst horrors. At the battle of Dreux (19th of December 1562) he commanded a reserve army, with which he saved Montmorency's forces from destruction and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Huguenots. The prince of Conde was his prisoner, while the capture of Montmorency by the Huguenots and the assassination of the Marshal de Saint-Andre after the battle left Guise the undisputed head of the Catholic party. He was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and on the 5th of February 1563 he appeared with his army before Orleans. On the 19th, however, he was shot by the Huguenot Jean Poltrot de Mere as he was returning to his quarters, and died on the 24th of the effects of the wound. Guise's splendid presence, his generosity and humanity and his almost unvarying success on the battlefield made him the idol of his soldiers. He attended personally to the minutest details, and Monluc complains that he even wrote out his own orders. The mistakes and cruelties associated with his name were