All this was sufficient, without doubt, to alarm that prince, and give him caution to look about him, or at least to suspect the king’s intentions towards him; but the flourishing condition wherein he was placed, the applauses which were given him both by the people and by the court itself, which admired both his conduct and his perpetual felicity, and regarded him as arbitrator and master of affairs, and the certain opinion which he had, that all things would go for him in the estates, had so far blinded him, that he believed it was not in the power of fortune to do him any prejudice, not so much as to shake him, or to give the smallest stop to the full career of his success. Thus he entered as it were in triumph into Blois at the end of September; and the king came thither about the same time, to order the preparations for the estates. He commanded, that all future proceedings should be as it were sanctified by two solemn and conspicuous acts of piety; which were a most devout and magnificent procession made on the first Sunday of October, the second day of that month, and by a general communion, taken by all the deputies on the Sunday following, the ninth of the same month; on which the king, in token of a perfect reconcilement, received, with the Duke of Guise, the precious body of Jesus Christ from the hands of the Cardinal de Bourbon, in the church of Saint Saviour. After which, all those who were expected being at length arrived, the assembly of the states was opened on Sunday the sixteenth of that month, in the great hall of the castle of Blois. As it is not my business to say any thing of this assembly, which relates not precisely to the history of the League, I shall not trouble myself with every particular which passed in it. I shall only say, that the king, who was naturally eloquent, opened the assembly with an excellent oration; wherein, after he had, in a most majestic manner, and with most pathetic words, exhorted the deputies to their duty, he either could not, or would not, conceal from them, that he had not so far forgotten the past actions, but that he had taken up a firm resolution, to inflict an exemplary punishment on such who should persist in acting against his authority, and continue to be still possessed with that spirit of leaguing and caballing, which was upon the point of ruining the state; neither would he henceforth spare those who should have any other union than that which the members ought to have with their head, and subjects with their sovereign.