‘As Guise entered, one of the Guards tried to give him a last chance, and trod upon his foot. Guise understood, but he knew escape was impossible. The usher had come out from the King’s closet, and had shut the door on the inside. Guise made two steps, then took hold of his beard with his right hand, and half turned to see who was following him. The Sieur de Montsérine, who was standing by the mantel-piece, advanced and stabbed him swiftly in the left breast. “Traitor, you will die of this!” he called out, as he dealed the thrust. The Duke hit out with his sweet-box, the only weapon in his hand. Three other men, concealed behind the tapestry, fell on him at once. “_Eh, mes amis!_” he cried. When one among the rest, called Periac, pierced him, his voice grew louder with a prayer for pity. In his struggle his sword had got entangled in his cloak, and his legs had been seized. But, with an almost superhuman effort, he dragged himself from one end of the room to another, and along the passage to Henri’s bedroom, leaving bloodstains in his track. “My God, I am dead! Have mercy on me!” he groaned. The words were his last; they were heard distinctly in the Council-hall, and his brother, the Cardinal de Guise, was the first to catch them. ‘Before the breath was out of his body, the courtiers were plundering it. One took the diamond heart from his ring, another his purse full of gold coins.’ The _west wing_, dating from 1635, was built for Gaston d’Orléans by François Mansard. It contains the public library. The _south wing_ contains some rooms built by Louis XII. or his father, Charles d’Orléans, and also the ornate Chapelle Saint Calais, in which Henri IV. married Marguerite de Valois. It has been restored so much that it has lost somewhat in interest, in spite of its profuse gilding on walls and ceiling. THE CHURCHES OF BLOIS _Cathedral of St. Louis_, sixteenth century, rebuilt in seventeenth century in the time of Louis XIV. in a debased ogee style. The upper parts of the tower and main entrance are Renaissance, while the base of the tower belongs to the twelfth century, when an earlier church was standing. _St. Nicholas_, a cruciform church situated at the foot of the château, is the oldest in Blois, and is quite the most interesting. It formerly belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Laumur, and was built between 1138 and 1210 in Transitional and Gothic periods. The upper parts of the two western towers are modern. The interior is very impressive, the style being strong and simple, with a beautiful vaulted ambulatory. Some of the capitals are very finely carved. The altar-screen dates from 1460, and there are epitaphs and inscriptions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.