Reign of Henry III. continued—Conspiracy of Salcede—Francis de Rosières—Peter de Belloy—Francis le Breton—Bernard Palissy—Daring plots of the League—Henry III. expelled from Paris—The Bastile surrenders to Guise—Bussi le Clerc appointed governor—Damours—James de la Guesle—Reign of Henry IV.—Members of the parliament arrested—President de Harlay—Potier de Blancmesnil—The family of Seguier—Speeches of Henry IV.—Louis Seguier—James Gillot—Outrage committed by the Council of Sixteen—It is punished by the duke of Mayenne—Henry IV. enters Paris—Surrender of the Bastile—Du Bourg—Treasure deposited in the Bastile by Henry. It was a conspiracy against the duke of Anjou, and the king of France, that brought the next prisoner of importance to the Bastile. This conspiracy originated with the Guises, was promoted by that great artisan of mischief Philip the Second of Spain, and contained the seminal principle of the subsequent war, which is known as the war of the League. The agent employed in carrying it on was Nicholas Salcede, a man of daring and profligate character, whose father, a Spanish gentleman, the governor of Vic, in Lorraine, having offended the Guises, was slain, though he was a catholic, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. By dint, however, of heaping favours and attentions on him, the Guises, to whom, indeed, he was distantly related, soon induced Salcede to forget the murder of his parent. By a crowning act of kindness, they, in some measure, acquired a right to his services. Counterfeiting the king’s coin, as well as that of foreign states, was a crime which, for a long series of years, was of common occurrence in France among persons of rank. The punishment of throwing them into boiling oil was insufficient to deter them; for it was so often evaded that it ceased to create terror. Salcede had carried the practice of coining to such an extent as to be able to purchase an estate. Being detected, he was summoned to take his trial at Rouen, and, as he prudently refused to appear, sentence of death was passed upon him as a contumacious criminal. But the duke of Lorraine interceded for him, and his pardon was granted. This, and the prospect of honours and rewards, linked him firmly to the Guises.