The Murder at Blois

Extract

December 23rd, 1588.

To us, who look back on it after three hundred and fifty years, the murder at Blois seems an inevitable climax to the continued provocation suffered by Henry III at the hands of his most powerful follower ; but to the Duke of Guise, save in the last few minutes of all, it was a thing undreamed of and unfeared. ‘So blind was that high mind of his to things as clear as daylight,’ says Pierre de l’Estoile, that ‘he could not bring himself to believe that the King intended to do him an ill-turn; for God had blinded his eyes, as he generally does to those whom he designs to chasten.’

In July of the year 1588, five months before the day of his death, the Duke, fresh from a victory in Alsace, rode triumphantly into Paris—and the King trembled at his subject’s approach.

Henry de Guise was thirty-eight years of age. He was tall and well built. His hair was fair and curly, and he wore a close-trimmed beard. Across his left cheek still showed the scar which had been inflicted on him at the Battle of Dormans, thirteen years before, but he was none the less handsome for that. His was the perfect figure of a soldier. All were devoted to him, for his generosity, for his tireless energy, for his prompt actions and decisions. ‘Franee went mad over this man,’ said Balzac, ‘to say they loved him is too weak an expression.’

At once, on the day of the Barricades, he won a personal triumph.