Leaguers now show that the serenity of their faces was but the mirror of
their minds.

But the Leaguers' archbishop said that he could make no further advances.
So ended the conference.'

The chiefs of the politicians now went to the king and informed him that
the decisive moment had arrived.

Henry had preserved: his coolness throughout. Amid all the hubbub of
learned doctors of law, archbishops-Leaguer and political-Sorbonne
pedants, solemn grandees from Spain with Latin orations in their pockets,
intriguing Guises, huckstering Mayennes, wrathful Huguenots, sanguinary
cardinal-legates, threatening world-monarchs--heralded by Spanish
musketeers, Italian lancers, and German reiters--shrill screams of
warning from the English queen, grim denunciations from Dutch Calvinists,
scornful repulses from the holy father; he kept his temper and his eye-
sight, as perfectly as he had ever done through the smoke and din of
the wildest battle-field. None knew better than he how to detect the
weakness of the adversary, and to sound the charge upon his wavering
line.

He blew the blast--sure that loyal Catholics and Protestants alike would
now follow him pell-mell.

On the 16th, May, 1593, he gave notice that he consented to get himself
instructed, and that he summoned an assembly at Mantes on the 15th July,
of bishops, theologians, princes, lords, and courts of parliament to hold
council, and to advise him what was best to do for religion and the
State.