Hardly had Condé entered Orleans, before he was arrested on a charge of high treason, and commissioners were appointed to try him. He refused to answer, on the plea that a prince of the blood royal could be tried only by the king and his peers, with all the assembled houses of Parliament. The Lorraines showed him an ordinance, by which he was declared guilty of lese-majesty, if he, persisted in his refusal. “We must not tolerate,” said the Duke de Guise, “the bravadoes of this young gallant, prince though he be; we must crush the head of heresy and rebellion at one blow.” The chief of the house of Bourbon humbled himself before the duke and the cardinal, to solicit the pardon of his brother. They received him with lofty coldness, and had a strict watch kept over him. All historians relate that they conceived the project of assassinating him. As they dared not bring him to trial, it was resolved to summon him before Francis II., and so to induce a quarrel, by which the king should be led to draw his sword upon him. At this signal the courtiers were to throw themselves upon Antoine de Bourbon, and poniard him. When informed of the plan, the extent of the danger inspired him with a degree, of courage, and he said to the Captain Rente: “I am going to a place where my death has been sworn. If I perish, take the shirt I now wear; carry it to my wife, since my son is not yet old enough to take vengeance for my death; and let her send it to the Christian princes, who will avenge me.” He then entered the king’s chamber, and the Cardinal de Lorraine shut the door behind him. The king made some insulting observations to him; but either from the timidity of youth, or from pity, he was afraid to give the signal. “The coward! the poltroon!” murmured Francis de Guise, who was hidden behind the door. A king of seventeen commissioned to assassinate his uncle! What manners! What a reign! What a court![35] The Cardinal de Lorraine had also conceived a plan for the extermination of heretics, resembling those executed against the Albigeois of Languedoc, or the Moors of Spain. Would that for the honour of the human race, it were possible to deny such detestable designs; but they are attested by (Roman) Catholic writers, and even by the Jesuit Maimbourg. The Cardinal had therefore resolved to make all Frenchmen sign a formula of faith drawn up by the Sorbonne in 1542; a formula which, says Jean de Serres, “_no man of the religion would for a thousand livres have approved or signed_.”