n6 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. above 10,000, but officered by mignons, so that the dash and braveiy of Henry of Navarre gained in one hour the first complete victory ever won by his party. Joyeuse was killed and his artillery taken ; but Henry then returned to Beam, while an army of German Protestants, which was marchingt o join him, wa , cut off by Guise and Epernon. 12. The Barricades, 1587. — The Catholics were divided into three parties, namely, the Leaguers, who would have no Calvinist king, nor toleration for a heretic ; the Royalists, who thought nothing could interfere with hereditary right ; and the Montmorency party, who made common cause with the Huguenots, in hopes of restoring the ancient poAver of the nobility. But the fall of the Duke of Joyeuse had so weakened the Royalists that Guise, in a conference at Nancy, decided that the time was come for forcing on the king the recognition of the Cardinal of Bourbon as his heir, the acceptance of the canons of the Council of Trent, and the establishment of the Inquisition. Whatever kingly feeling remained to Henry III. was shown in his wish to do justice to his heir, and he temporized till the people of Paris grew furious. Guise hurried from Nancy, and on the 7th of May, 1587, entered the capital, where he was welcomed as the Judas Maccabreus of France, and going to the king at the Louvre, insisted on his accepting the terms of the League. Henry still delayed, and began to muster his Scottish and Swiss guards, thus giving rise to a report that there was to be a massacre of the Leaguers. The citizens, rising in arms, barricaded the streets, and in alarm Henry rode off to Blois. He was shot at as he passed the gate, and turning round he swore only to return through a breach in the walls. Still he was not out of reach of Guise, who came after him and forced him to consent to everything, and to become the mere tool of the League. The States-General were convoked at Blois, and before them Henry declared himself chief of the League, and submitted to decrees destroying the power of the crown. 13. Murder of Guise, 1588. — Guise's conduct was inso- lent ; Henry's suite were abused, struck and wounded by the followers of the duke ; and it was the common report that Guise's sister, the Duchess of Montpensicr, kept a pair of gold-handled scissors with which to shave the head of the last Valois before he should be put into his convent. Henry's savage nature awakened, and with some of his guards he-plotted the death of his tyrant. Warnings were
