Henry III.’s position became very precarious. The Guises were in possession of many of the chief towns, and Duke Henry was the idol of the people. The king, to avoid the impending danger, feigned to adhere to the League—declared himself its chief—waged war with the Protestants—and consented to give more towns and places of security into the hands of his enemies. Nevertheless the king’s opponents remitted nothing of their hostility, and filled the nation with hatred of his person, venting itself in curses and imprecations. In Paris, the stronghold of the League, the question was publicly discussed whether Henry should be deposed. The king advanced towards the capital with some troops. Guise hastened to it against the king’s express command. The people took up arms—barricades were erected—the royal army was defeated—and the king obliged to fly.[168] Maffei and Crétineau reproach the Duke of Guise for allowing him to escape uninjured. Henry, concealing his hatred, feigned again to submit, summoned a parliament to meet at Blois, and conferred upon Guise almost unlimited power over the kingdom. But in the very moment in which he saw within his grasp the prize which he so eagerly sought, he fell, along with his brother the cardinal, in the royal palace, a victim of the king’s revenge. Thus Guise perished, not, as he deserved, by the sword of justice, but by the poniard of an assassin. The deed cannot be excused. The League thundered anathemas against the king; the University of Paris excommunicated him; and the parliament declared that “the aforesaid Henry of Valois should be condemned to make honourable amends, dressed only in his shirt, with a rope about his neck, assisted by the executioner, and holding in his hand a lighted torch weighing thirty pounds; that from that moment he should be deposed, and declared unworthy of the crown of France; and that, renouncing all right to it, he should be afterwards banished and placed in a convent of the Hieromites, there to fast on bread and water for the rest of his days.”[169] Priests and Jesuits from every pulpit poured out volleys of curses upon that tyrant, who deserved to be swept from the face of the earth. And while the king, now in league with Henry of Navarre, was marching towards Paris, Clement, a Dominican friar, stabbed him at St Cloud, on the first of August 1589.