Henry M. Baird · 243 of 379

CHAPTER X · Rejoinder of the Duke of Guise.

The Guises spoke on the same day. The duke made a short, but passionate rejoinder to Coligny, and gave little or no attention to the question proposed for deliberation. He bitterly retorted to the proposal for the dismissal of the body-guard, by saying that it had been placed around the king only since the discovery of the treasonable plot of Amboise, and he indignantly maintained that a conspiracy against ministers was only a cover for designs against their master. As for the announcement of the admiral that he could bring fifty thousand names to his petitions, which he construed as a personal threat, he angrily replied that if that or a greater number of the Huguenot sect should present themselves, the king would oppose them with a million men of his own. The question of religion he left to be discussed by others of more learning; but well was he assured that not all the councils of the world would detach him from the ancient faith. The assembling of the States he referred to the king's discretion.