dominions and aggrandising his power, knew would secure to themselves an
influence over his royal and generous mind.

Upon this occasion, the Queen my mother represented to the King that the
attempt of M. de Guise upon the Admiral's life was excusable in a son
who, being denied justice, had no other means of avenging his father's
death. Moreover, the Admiral, she said, had deprived her by
assassination, during his minority and her regency, of a faithful servant
in the person of Charri, commander of the King's body-guard, which
rendered him deserving of the like treatment.

Notwithstanding that the Queen my mother spoke thus to the King,
discovering by her expressions and in her looks all the grief which she
inwardly felt on the recollection of the loss of persons who had been
useful to her; yet, so much was King Charles inclined to save those who,
as he thought, would one day be serviceable to him, that he still
persisted in his determination to punish M. de Guise, for whom he ordered
strict search to be made.

At length Pardaillan, disclosing by his menaces, during the supper of the
Queen my mother, the evil intentions of the Huguenots, she plainly
perceived that things were brought to so near a crisis, that, unless
steps were taken that very night to prevent it, the King and herself were
in danger of being assassinated. She, therefore, came to the resolution
of declaring to King Charles his real situation. For this purpose she
thought of the Marechal de Rais as the most proper person to break the
matter to the King, the Marshal being greatly in his favour and
confidence.

Accordingly, the Marshal went to the King in his closet, between the