For a time, although thoroughly informed that such was the fact, his emissaries were unable to produce any tangible proof of the validity of their accusations; but at length, rendered bold by impunity, Marguerite was so imprudent (for the purpose of forwarding some despatches to the rebel Duke) as to cause the arrest of a royal courier, charged with an autograph letter of two entire sheets from the King to his favourite the Duc de Joyeuse,[16] who was then on a mission at Rome; when the unfortunate messenger, who found himself suddenly attacked by four men in masks, made so desperate an effort to save the packet with which he had been entrusted, that the _sbirri_ of the Princess, who had anticipated an easy triumph, became so much exasperated that they stabbed him on the spot. This occurrence no sooner reached the ears of Henri III, than he sent to desire the presence of his sister, when, utterly regardless of the fact that they were not alone, he so far forgot his own dignity as to overwhelm her with the coarsest and most cutting reproaches; and not satisfied with expatiating upon the treachery of which she had been guilty towards himself, he passed in review the whole of her ill-spent life, accusing her, among other enormities, of the birth of an illegitimate son,[17] and terminated his invectives by commanding her instantly "to quit Paris, and rid the Court of her presence." [18] On the morrow Marguerite accordingly left the capital with even less state than she had entered it, for she had neither suite nor equipage, and was accompanied only by Madame de Duras and Mademoiselle de Béthune, her two favourite attendants. She was not, however, suffered to depart even thus without impediment, for she had only travelled a few leagues when, between Saint-Cler and Palaiseau, her litter was stopped by a captain of the royal guard, at the head of a troop of harquebusiers: she was compelled to remove her mask; and her companions, after having been subjected to great discourtesy, were finally conveyed as prisoners to the Abbey of Ferrières, near Montargis, where they underwent an examination, at which the King himself presided,[19] and wherein facts were elicited that were fatal to the character of their mistress. Their replies were then reduced to writing; and Marguerite, who had been detained for this express purpose, was compelled by her inexorable brother to affix her signature to the disgraceful document; when, after she had been subjected to this new indignity, the daughter of Catherine de Medicis was at length permitted to pursue her journey; but she was compelled to do so alone, as her two attendants were forbidden to bear her company.