"It was said, Sire, as I heard, by several people, that he had evidently absented himself from policy, not wishing to oppose your Majesty, and yet unwilling to go to war with Savoy. Some said, indeed, Sire," he continued, "that Chapelle Marteau had acknowledged that this was the case. But that could not be so either, for the Duke sent for the President of the Tiers Etats last night, without being able to find him. That I know from the servants, so that what Chapelle said must have been out of his own head; while, on the contrary, I hear that Monsieur Magnac and the Count de Brissac, who were with the Duke for more than an hour last night, spoke vehemently against the Duke of Savoy amongst the Nobles at the Palais de Justice. Thus the Nobles were as unanimous for the war, as the other two States were against it." "That should be the foot-fall of a Guise in the antechamber," said the King. "Who is without there?" "The Duke of Guise, your Majesty," said a page entering almost as the King spoke, "craves audience for a moment." "Admit him," said the King; "admit him:" and the next instant the Duke of Guise entered hastily in a riding dress. "Your Majesty's gracious pardon," he said, "for presenting myself before you thus: but I heard tidings, as I came along, which I believed might give you great and exceeding pain." "Well may it give me pain, cousin of Guise," replied the King. "Well may it give me pain, to find that my subjects are so insensible to their own honour or to mine, as to suffer a foreign enemy to encamp upon our native soil, without doing what best we may to drive him forth." "It may, indeed, Sire," replied the Duke of Guise. "But the matter has not been properly explained; and neither the Tiers Etats nor the Clergy have seen it in its true light." "But where was the Duke of Guise to explain it?" demanded Henry. "Where was the Generalissimo of my armies, the Lieutenant-general of my kingdom, the Grand Master of my household, the man whose voice is only second to my own in France--ay, and by Heavens! whose voice is sometimes first likewise? Where was he, I say; and how came he not to be present?"