the evidence points strongly to the fact that he was murdered at her instigation. Not only do Thuanus (iii. 108-9) and Mezeray (_Histoire de France_, iii. 391) give graphic accounts of her visit to de Viteaux at the monastery of the Augustins at Paris, where he had taken sanctuary, and tell how she persuaded him by her caresses to commit the murder, but her friend Brantôme, while he praises her for not oftener availing herself of this means of punishing her enemies, and asserts that she never retaliated on du Guast, makes the following admission (v. 187): ‘Il est vray que lors qu’on l’eut tué, et qu’on luy vint annoncer, elle estant malade’ (she had a bad cold, _Mémoires_, p. 66), ‘elle dict seulement “Je suis bien marrie que je ne suis bien guerie pour de joye solemniser sa mort.”’ In her _Mémoires_ (p. 79), she alludes to du Guast’s death only incidentally, but at the same time leaves on record unmistakeable evidence of her feelings towards him. ‘Le Guast lors estoit mort, ayant esté tué par un jugement de Dieu, pendant qu’il suoit une diette, comme aussy c’estoit un corps gasté de toutes sortes de villanies, qui fust donné à la pourriture qui des longtemps le possedoit, et son ame aux dæmons, à qui il avoit faict hommage par magie et toutes sortes de meschancetez.’ [102] See note 2, p. 64. [103] The word in the text is Casteldunum (Châteaudun), but this must be a misprint or mistake, as Châteaudun is on the other side of the Loire, and a long way from Poitiers. From a journal kept by an Avocat of Saint-Maixent in Poitou, we are able to fix Alençon at La Guerche, which is close to Châtelherault, on October 1. Châtelherault is therefore probably the place intended. See _Le Riche_, p. 238. [104] The Duke of Guise seems hardly to have deserved the credit he acquired at the battle of Château Thierry. With 10,000 infantry and 1,000 heavy cavalry, he attacked Thoré, whose troops did not number more than 2,500; even of these some had been tampered with and went over to the Duke. Neither was the way in which he received the wound which gave him the soubriquet of ‘le Balafré’ much to his credit as a soldier. The struggle had been decided, and he was engaged in hunting down one of the fugitives in a thicket of brambles, when the man turned and shot him in the face. See _Thuanus_, iii. 105-6.