Henry III. thought by one stroke to rid himself of his enemies by killing Guise, and terrorising his party. “At last,” he said to his mother, immediately after the execution, “at last I am King of France.” “You have plunged your country into ruin,” replied Catharine. “You have boldly cut out the cloth, but do not know how to sew the garment together.” She spoke truly, for she knew her son. When the news reached Paris a great gust of rage passed over the city. It was Christmas Day, but all rejoicing turned to sorrow, and dirges took the place of Te Deums. From the pulpits thundered denunciations of the royal murderer, and by the middle of January (1589) the Sorbonne, under the promptings of the Spanish party, had declared that the subjects of Henry III. were released from their allegiance. A council of government was formed, with Mayenne, Guise’s brother, as president and lieutenant-general of the realm. All through France the example of Paris was followed, and the League was soon the great governing power of the country, Henry finding himself little more than King of Blois. He was therefore obliged to draw closer to Henry of Navarre; and at first Philip feared that this coalition would unite all Frenchmen against him, now that the popular Guise had fallen. But Mayenne had no one else to lean upon, and in the first letter after his brother’s death told the Spanish king that the whole of the Catholics of France threw themselves at his feet. Henceforward the springs that moved the puppets in Catholic France obtained their impulsion from Madrid. Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, although he had kept a few miles from the king’s court at Blois, had since the murder of Guise become more and more incensed with him, as he drifted nearer to the Huguenot cause, and now fled from the king’s court without a word of farewell to Paris, in the pretended fear that Henry intended to have him poisoned. Henceforward the old soldier, the last disciple of Alba, as he called himself, was tireless in organising and stimulating the resistance of the people of Paris against the king and the Huguenots. He was old and blind, but he went from outpost to outpost animating the soldiers; he laboured day and night with the nuncio, Gaetano, in stiffening Mayenne, and until his last ducat was spent and he had no food or firing for himself, he sheltered and fed the starving and homeless Leaguers. Through all the weary sieges of Paris, until broken and blind at last he went to end his days in despair as a monk, Mendoza continued to urge Philip to action against the Huguenots, to resist the insults offered to himself, to harry France with fire and sword in the name of the faith--the counsels, indeed, of the old Alba school to which he belonged. Philip, as usual, was cool and irresponsive. He told his minister--when he condescended to write to him at all, which was very rarely--that he must be patient and prudent, and must seek to be friendly with all parties.