Meantime he returned to the siege of Dreux, made an assault on the place,
was repulsed, and then hung nine prisoners of war in full sight of the
garrison as a punishment for their temerity in resisting him. The place
soon after capitulated (8th July, 1593).

The interval between the summons and the assembling of the clerical and
lay notables at Mantes was employed by the Leaguers in frantic and
contradictory efforts to retrieve a game which the most sagacious knew to
be lost. But the politicians were equal to the occasion, and baffled
them at every point.

The Leaguers' archbishop inveighed bitterly against the abominable edicts
recently issued in favour of the Protestants.

The political archbishop (of Bourges) replied not by defending; but by
warmly disapproving, those decrees of toleration, by excusing the king
for having granted them for a temporary purpose, and by asserting
positively that, so soon as the king should be converted, he would no
longer countenance such measures.

It is superfluous to observe that very different language was held on the
part of Henry to the English and Dutch Protestants, and to the Huguenots
of his own kingdom.

And there were many meetings of the Leaguers in Paris, many belligerent
speeches by the cardinal legate, proclaiming war to the knife rather
than that the name of Henry the heretic should ever be heard of again as
candidate for the throne, various propositions spasmodically made in full
assembly by Feria, Ybarra, Tassis, the jurisconsult Mendoza, and other