At last, after all this preparation, the Queen gave him her final reply. Calais and Havre must both be garrisoned with Englishmen as a security for her that the King of France would fulfil all his promises. Alençon could hardly believe his ears. Was she in earnest, he asked, and was this the final reply? Certainly, replied the Queen, and she could give no other: and Alençon, thunderstruck, flung out of the room in a rage, now thoroughly undeceived. He at once called a council of his friends, and told them how he had been betrayed. His honour must be avenged at all costs, but for the present he must dissemble with the Queen, as her help was necessary to enable him first to wreak his vengeance upon the prime author of his downfall, his false brother the King, who had sent Simier hither, knowing he could do as he liked with the Queen, in order to frustrate the marriage. The sinister tyrant his brother, and his evil-minded mother had plotted against his welfare, and he would be even with them. His mother’s only object was to keep him under her thumb in France in order to hold his brother the better in her thraldom. There were two courses open to him, he said: first, to carry on the war in Flanders; and secondly, to raise civil war in France. The first he could not do without the English Queen’s help, which he probably could not get, as she was in treaty with the Spaniards, and he was certain his brother would not aid him; but the Queen would willingly support him in a Huguenot war in France, as she had promised the King of Navarre to do so. After much of this heated talk and denunciation of the proud Guises, in which Marchaumont and de Quincy added fuel to the fire, the Prince Dauphin, old beyond his years, who had hitherto remained silent, being urged by Alençon to give his opinion, turned a cold stream of good sense on the inflated balderdash of Alençon and his friends. He would have nothing to do with treason, he said, and warned them to take care they did not lose their heads for such talk. This fairly frightened them all, and Alençon took him apart in a window recess and prayed him earnestly not to desert him. But the Dauphin was obdurate; he would leave for France at once, and consort no more with the enemies of his King. He and the spies behind the arras soon told everything to cautious old Pinart, who had brought the King’s reply, and he flew to the Queen to urge her not to help Alençon against his brother. She had not heard a word about such a project, she truly said, but Pinart did not quite know whether to believe her, and warned her in almost threatening words of her danger if she listened to talk which would bring all Christendom down upon her. Then he went and rated Alençon soundly, who began to whimper, protesting that he did not mean anything wrong, and collapsed completely.