Vli.l THE RELIGIOUS WARS, ii7 sent to Guise ; but he was too proud and daring to heed them, and went as usual to the council at the palace on the 23rd of December, 1588. He was summoned into the king's apartments, where eight of Henry's gentlemen fell on him and killed him on the spot. The duke's brother, the cardinal, was killed the next day. The king then spurned the body with his foot, and Henry, going to the room where Queen Catharine lay ill in bed, said, " 1 am King of France, the King of Paris is dead." " Take care that you are not king of nothing," she answered ; " you have cut, can you sew up again ?" She died a fortnight later. Henry of Guise, though a violent and very far from a virtuous man, had more honour and singleness of aim than either of the other two Henries, and his grand presence and noble manners had made him the idol of his party, as his death rendered him their martyr. All Catho- lic France oried out with horror, and Paris uttered roars of frenzy, tearing down the king's coats of arms, destroy- ing his portraits, and talking of a republic. As Guise's children were infants, his brother Charles, Duke of Alayetine, became head of the League, and levied war against the murderer. 14. Murder of Henry III., 1589. — The only hope for Henry III. was in throwing himself on his brother-in-law of Navarre and owning him as his heir. The two kings were joined by all such Catholics as were unwilling to go all lengths with the Leaguers, and at the head of 40,000 men they blockaded Paris, while the Duke of Mayenne could only hover in the distance with 10,000. But the besieged, men, women, and children, were filled with passionate fury against the ally of heretics, the assassin of the champion of their faith. They were excited by the fierce appeals of the Duchess of Montpensier and the savage sermons of the Dominicans and Jesuits. At last a young Dominican monk named Jacques Clement, the day before a general assault was expected, stole out of Paris in disguise, and, presenting a letter to the king, stabbed him during the reading of it. Thus Henry III. died on the 5th of August, 1589, in his thirty-eighth year, exhorting his friends to cleave to his cousin of Navarre, In him the house of Valois became extinct. Under the kings of that house the kingdom had nearly perished, and, when its strength was restored, they had used it for wars of ambition. At last home troubles rent the kingdom, and the frivolity, falsehood, and cruelty of the sons of
