A spectacle so surprising produced different effects in the minds of the standers by; according to the variety of their tempers, some of them were melted into compassion, others were moved to laughter, and some even to indignation; and more than all the rest, the Marshal de Biron, who, having no manner of relish for this sort of devotion, and fearing, besides, that some dangerous Leaguers might have crowded in amongst them, with intention to preach the people into a mutiny, counselled the king to clap them up in prison every mother’s son. But that good prince, who, notwithstanding all his faults, had a stock of piety at the bottom, and much respect for all things that related to religion, rejected wholly this advice. He listened to them much more favourably than he had heard all the harangues of the former deputies; and promised to grant them the pardon they desired for the town, which he had so much favoured, on condition they would return to their obedience. And truly, it is exceeding probable, that he had so done from that very time, if they had not afterwards given him fresh provocations, by proposing the terms on which they insisted for the peace, which they desired. For the Duke of Guise, to whom all these fair appearances were very serviceable, and could be no ways prejudicial, and who always pursued his designs in a direct line, knew so well to manage the disposition of the queen-mother, who had seemed at first to be much startled at his demands, that he recalled her with much dexterity into his interests, by working on those two passions which were rooted in her soul. She desired to raise to the throne, after the death of the king her son, her grandson Henry de Lorrain, Marquis du Pont; and believed that the Duke of Guise would contribute to it all that was in his power. But as cunning as she was, she saw not into the bottom of that prince, who fed her only with vain hopes of that succession for another, to which he personally aspired. She infinitely hated the Duke of Espernon; and believing he was the man, who, having possessed himself of the king’s soul, had rendered her suspected to him, longed to turn him out of court; promising herself, by that means, to be re-established in the management of affairs, from which the favourites had removed her. And the Duke of Guise, who had as little kindness as herself for the Duke of Espernon, concurred in the same design with at least as much earnestness, but for a much different end, for he desired to be absolute himself. In this manner, this subtle prince, always dissembling, and artificially hiding the true motives by which he acted, drew the queen at last to consent to all that he desired; and, above all, to give her allowance, that a request should be presented to the king, in the name of the cardinals, the princes, the peers of France, the lords, the deputies of Paris, and the other towns, and of all the Catholics united for the defence of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion.