_Gril._ 'Sdeath, how the traitors lower, and quake, and droop, And gather to the wing of his protection, As if they were his friends, and fought his cause! _King._ [_Looking upon_ GUISE.] Be witness, heaven, I gave him treble warning! He's gone--no more.--Disperse, and think upon it. Beware my sword, which, if I once unsheath, By all the reverence due to thrones and crowns, Nought shall atone the vows of speedy justice, Till fate to ruin every traitor brings, That dares the vengeance of indulgent kings. [_Exuent._ Footnotes: 1. The Council of Sixteen certainly offered to place twenty thousand disciplined citizens of Paris at the devotion of the Duke of Guise; and here the intended parallel came close: for Shaftesbury used to boast, that he could raise the like number of brisk boys in the city of London, by merely holding up his finger. 2. During the cabals of the Council of Sixteen, the Duke of Aumale approached Paris with five hundred veteran horse, levied in the disaffected province of Picardy. Jean Conti, one of the sheriffs (_Echevins_) of Paris, was tampered with to admit them by St Martin's gate; but as he refused, the leaguers stigmatised him as a heretic and favourer of Navarre. Another of these officers consented to open to Aumale the gate of St Denis, of which the keys were intrusted to him. The conspirators had determined, as is here expressed, to seize the person of the king, when he should attend the procession of the Flagellants, as he was wont to do in time of Lent. But he was apprised of their purpose by Poltrot, one of their number, and used the pretext of indisposition to excuse his absence from the penitential procession. _Davila_, lib. viii.