When he had thus convinced himself that the King's powers of endurance had reached their extreme limit, De Luynes and his confederates on one occasion entered his chamber in the evening, but instead of suggesting to the young monarch, according to their usual habit, some method of whiling away the time until he retired to rest, they approached him with a melancholy and almost frightened deportment which at once aroused alike his curiosity and his apprehension. "What is the meaning of your manner, gentlemen?" asked Louis. "What has occurred?" His attendants glanced at each other, as if trusting that some one of their number would be bold enough to take the responsibility of a reply upon himself; but no one spoke. "I have asked a question, and I demand an answer," said Louis with a threatening frown. "Do the very members of my household--those who call themselves my friends--forget that, spite of all my trials, and all my privations, I am still the King of France?" "Sire," murmured the one upon whom his eye had rested as he spoke, "it is because we are devoted heart and soul to your Majesty that you see us in this mortal anxiety. In losing you we should lose everything; but since it is your command that we should tell you all, it is our duty to obey. The citizens of Paris are in a state of consternation. All your loyal subjects fear for your life. Tears and sobs are to be heard on every side. You are in the hands of Italians--of the countrymen and countrywomen of Catherine de Medicis; and everything is to be apprehended from people who know so well how to work out their ends by poison." "Is it come to this?" gasped the young King as he sank back upon his chair. "Am I to die mocked as I have lived? A sovereign without a will, a king without a throne, a monarch without a crown? The tool of needy adventurers and intriguing women? the victim of treachery and murder?" and the credulous boy leant his head upon his hands, and wept. Before the chamber of Louis was closed that night upon his confidential friends it was decided that the weapon of the assassin and the axe of the executioner should rid him of Concini and his wife; and that his mother should be banished from the Court. When the King awoke on the following morning De Luynes was already at his bedside, in order to counteract by his specious arguments and gloomy prognostics any less violent and criminal decision at which his royal master might have arrived during the solitude and silence of the night; and ably did the tempter perform his task. An increase of devotion and respect was skilfully blended with an apparent anxiety and alarm, which flattered the self-esteem and vanity of Louis, at the same time that they renewed all the terrors of the previous evening. His feeble remonstrances were overruled; his filial misgivings were stifled; and the favourite at length quitted his presence satisfied that he would not seek to retract his orders.