foreign ambition. We quoted but lately the words used by the governor of
Dieppe, Aymar de Chastes, when he said to Villars, governor of Rouen, who
pressed him to enter the League, "You will yourself find out that the
Spaniard is the real head of this League." On the 5th of August, 1590,
during the investment of Paris, a placard was pasted all over the city.
"Poor Parisians," it said, "I deplore your misery, and I feel even
greater pity towards you for being still such simpletons. See you not
that this son of perdition of a Spanish ambassador [Bernard de Mendoza],
who had our good king murdered, is making game of you, cramming you so
with pap that he would fain have had you burst before now in order to lay
hands on your goods and on France if he could? He alone prevents peace
and the repose of desolated France, as well as the reconciliation of the
king and the princes in real amity. Why are ye so tardy to cast him in a
sack down stream, that he may return the sooner to Spain?" On the 6th of
August, there was found written with charcoal, on the gate of St.
Anthony, the following eight lines:--

"Some folks, for Holy League bear more
Than the prodigal son in the Bible bore;
For he, together with his swine,
On bean, and root, and husk would dine;
Whilst they, unable to procure
Such dainty morsels, must endure
Between their skinny lips to pass
Offal and tripe of horse or ass."

"These," said a Latin inscription on the awnings of the butchers' shops,
"are the rewards of those who expose their lives for Philip" [_Haec sunt
munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo proferunt: Memoires de L'Estoile,_
t. ii. pp. 73, 74]. In 1591 these public sentiments, reproduced and