Meanwhile Catherine and Coligny had differed on a matter of foreign policy, and the king, bent on freeing himself from his mother's yoke, openly favoured the Huguenot leader. Catherine, terrified at the result of her own work, determined to regain her ascendency, and she conspired with her third son, the Prince of Anjou (later Henry III.), to destroy and have done with the Protestants. Coligny had often been warned of the danger he would run in Paris, but the stout old soldier knew no fear, and came to take part in the festivities of the wedding. The sounds of revelry had barely died away when Coligny, who was returning from the Louvre to his hotel, walking slowly and reading a petition, was fired at from a window as he passed the cloister of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and wounded in the arm. He stopped and noted the house whence the shot came: it was the house of the preceptor of the Duke of Guise. The king was playing at tennis when the news came to him: he flung down his racquet, exclaiming, "What! shall I never be in peace? must I suffer new trouble every day?" and went moody and pensive to his chamber. In a few moments Prince Condé and Henry of Navarre burst in, uttering indignant protests, and begged permission to leave Paris. Charles assured them he would do justice, and that they might safely remain. In the afternoon the king, his mother and the princes, went to visit the admiral. The king asked to be left alone in the wounded man's chamber, remained a long time with him, and protested that though the wound was his friend's, the grief was his own, and he swore to avenge him. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA, WIFE OF CHARLES IX. FRANÇOIS CLOUET.]