In the narrow porch through which they had to pass to reach the main hall, the lieutenant in command of the men outside was stationed, with three or four soldiers. Vicomte d'Exmès, without stopping, said to him briefly and in a tone which called for no reply,-- "I am bringing another surgeon to see Monseigneur." The lieutenant bowed, and allowed him to pass without the least objection. Gabriel and Paré entered the hall. The attention of all present was too deeply absorbed in the sad business in hand to notice their arrival. It was truly a harrowing and fearful sight which was presented to their gaze. In the centre of the hall, oil a camp bed, lay the Duc de Guise, motionless and unconscious, the blood streaming from his head. His face was pierced from side to side; the iron head of the lance, having entered the cheek beneath the right eye, had passed through his head to that portion of the neck immediately below the left ear, and the broken fragment projected half a foot from the gaping wound, which was frightful to look upon. Around the bed were grouped some ten or twelve physicians and surgeons, utterly bewildered amid the general despair. They were doing nothing whatever beyond looking on and talking. Just as Gabriel came in with Ambroise Paré, one of them was saying aloud,-- "Thus, having consulted together, we are under the painful necessity of announcing our unanimous opinion that Monsieur le Duc de Guise is mortally wounded, beyond hope of recovery: for in order to afford any chance of saving his life, the fragment of the lance must be withdrawn from the wound, and to extract it would be to kill Monseigneur beyond peradventure." "So, then, you prefer to let him die!" rang out the determined voice of Ambroise Paré from behind the foremost lookers-on. He had from that distance seen with a glance the really almost hopeless condition of the illustrious patient. The surgeon who had spoken raised his head to discover his bold critic, and failing to do so, he resumed,-- "Who would be so rash as to venture to lay his impious hands upon that august face, and run the risk, without chance of success, of causing the death of such a sufferer?" "I!" said Ambroise Paré, stepping forward with head erect into the group of surgeons. And without paying any further attention to those who surrounded him, or to the exclamations of surprise elicited by his word, he leaned over the duke to get a nearer view of the wound. "Ah! It is Master Ambroise Paré," said the surgeon-in-chief, contemptuously, as he recognized the madman who dared to utter an opinion different from his. "Master Ambroise Paré forgets," he added, "that he has not the honor of being numbered among the surgeons of the Duc de Guise."