This disclosure was of too much importance to Henry of France to admit of delay in making it known to him. The duke of Anjou accordingly despatched one of his chamberlains to Paris, with the depositions, and a letter, in which the Guises were not spared. At first, Henry was startled at the seeming danger; but his natural dislike of business, and his love of pleasure, soon induced him to take refuge in the idea that the whole was an invention of some one who wished to disturb his quiet, or a stratagem of his brother, to obtain liberal succours. Not so thought his minister Bellièvre, in whom he placed great confidence. While the minister perused the paper, the changes in his countenance plainly showed that he thought the plot was real, and the peril from it extreme. It was at length settled, that Bellièvre, accompanied by Brulart, one of the secretaries of state, should proceed to Bruges, interrogate Salcede, and require that the criminal should be transferred to Paris. “If,” said the king, “my brother consents to the transfer, I shall believe that a conspiracy exists.” When Bellièvre questioned him, Salcede, for the third time, repeated his story. He was now conveyed to France, and placed in the castle of Vincennes; the duke of Anjou having readily acceded to the wish of his brother. When, however, he was brought before the king in council, he disavowed all that he had previously said. His confession had, he affirmed, been dictated to him by three persons in the duke’s service, who compelled him to write it. “Why, then, did you say the same to Bellièvre, when those persons were absent?” inquired the king. To this the unblushing prisoner answered, that Bellièvre had intimidated him by threats, and that he had always been under the influence of terror while he was in the ducal palace. Bellièvre was a man remarkable for patience and politeness, but he was so provoked by this charge, that he could not forbear from exclaiming, “You are an impudent slanderer.” At the close of the examination, Salcede was removed to the Bastile. There he was again examined, and there he persisted in his disavowal. It now became a question what should be done with Salcede. The president de Thou advised that he should be retained in prison. He urged that, if the conspiracy were real, his detention would intimidate his accomplices, and afford the means of convicting them in case of need; while, on the other hand, if the conspiracy were only a calumny, invented by turbulent and ill-disposed persons, the existence of the criminal might serve to justify the innocence of those whom he had accused. His son, the celebrated historian, tells us, that the president had an additional motive in thus advising; he wished not merely to hold the conspirators in check, by preserving the evidence of their guilt, but, at the same time, to keep before the king’s eyes a memento of the danger to which he exposed himself by his unbridled licentiousness, and his oppressive misgovernment.