Thus went on the conversation between the Queen and the Duke of Guise for nearly half an hour, at the end of which time the gentleman who had been dispatched to the King returned, bearing his Majesty's reply, which was, that since his mother desired it, she might bring the Duke of Guise to his presence, and Catherine prepared immediately to set out. Her chair was brought round; and after speaking a few words with the superior of the convent, she placed herself in the vehicle, the Duke of Guise walking by her side. The gentlemen who had come with him gave their horses to the grooms, and followed on foot; and several servants and attendants ran on before to clear the way through the people. The moment the gates were opened, a spectacle struck the eyes of the Queen and the Duke, such as no city in the world perhaps, except Paris, could produce. In the short period which had elapsed since the Duke's arrival, the news had spread from one end of the capital to the other, and the whole of its multitudes were poured out into the streets or lining the windows, or crowning the house-tops. With a rapidity scarcely to be conceived, scaffoldings had been raised in that short space of time in different parts of the streets, to enable the multitude to see the Duke better as he passed[6]; in many places, velvets and rich tapestries were hung out upon the fronts of the houses, as if some solemn procession of the church were taking place; the ladies of the higher classes at the windows, or on their scaffolds, were generally without the masks which they usually wore in the streets; and again, when the gates of the convent opened, and the Queen and the Duke issued forth, the air seemed actually rent with the acclamations of the people, and a long line of waving hats and handkerchiefs was seen all the way up the Rue St. Denis. --------------------- [Footnote 6: This fact is recorded in every account of the proceedings of that day.] --------------------- The same gratulations as before met the Duke on every side as he passed along; the populace seemed absolutely inclined to worship him, and many threw themselves upon their knees as he passed. He looked round upon the dense mass of people, upon the crowded houses, upon the waving hands; he heard from every tongue a welcome, at every step a gratulation, and it was impossible for the heart of man not to feel at that moment a pride and a confidence fit to bear him strongly on his perilous way. All the way down the Rue St. Denis, and through every other street that he passed, the same scene presented itself, the same acclamations followed him, so that the shouts thundered in the ear of the King as he sat in the Louvre.