The only one that was perfectly calm was Guise himself; but he, retreading his steps till he stood opposite the King, again addressed the Monarch saying, "I hope, Sire, that you will give me a full opportunity of justifying myself."
"Your conduct, cousin of Guise," replied the King, "must best justify you for the past; and I shall judge by the event, of your intentions for the future."
"Let it be so," replied the Duke, "and such being the case, I will humbly take my leave of your Majesty, wishing you, from my heart, health and happiness."
Thus saying he once more bowed low, and retired from the presence of the King, followed by the gentlemen who had accompanied him. Not an individual of the palace stirred a step to conduct him on his way, though his rank, his services, his genius, and his vast renown, rendered the piece of neglect they showed disgraceful to themselves rather than injurious to him. He was accompanied from the gates of the Louvre, however, and followed to the Hôtel de Guise, by an infinite number of people, who ceased not for one moment to make the streets ring with their acclamations.
Nor were these by any means composed entirely of the lowest classes of the people, the least respectable, or the least well-informed. On the contrary, it must, alas! be said, that the great majority of all that was good, upright, and noble in the city hailed his coming loudly as a security and a safeguard.
A number, an immense number, of the inferior nobility of the realm were mingled with the crowd that followed him, or joined the acclaim from the windows. The robes of the law were seen continually in the dense multitude, and almost all the courts had there numbers of their principal members; while the municipal officers of the city, with the exception of two or three, were there in a mass, accompanied by a large body of the most opulent and respectable merchants.
Thus followed, the Duke of Guise proceeded to his hotel on foot as he came, speaking from time to time with those who pressed near him with that peculiar grace which won all hearts, and smiling with the far-famed smile of his race, which was said never to fall upon any man without making him feel as if he stood in the sunshine.
Already collected on the steps of the Hôtel de Guise, at the news that he was returning from the Louvre, was a group of the brightest, the bravest, the most talented, and the most beautiful of the French nobility,--Madame de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de St. Beuve, the Chevalier d'Aumale, Brissac, and a thousand others. The servants and attendants of his household in gorgeous dresses kept back the crowd with courteous words and kindly gestures; and when he reached the steps that led to the high doorway of the porter's lodge, on the right of the porte cochère, he ascended a little way amongst his gratulating friends, and then turned and bowed repeatedly to the people, pointing out here and there some of the most popular of the citizens and magistrates, and whispering a word to the nearest attendant, who instantly made his way through the crowd to the spot where the personage designated stood, and in his master's name requested that he would come in and take some refreshment.
When this was over, he again bowed and retired; and while the multitude separated, he walked on into his lordly halls with a number of persons clinging round him, whom he had not seen for months--for months which to him had been full of activity, thought, care, and peril, and to them of anxiety for the head of their race.
As he passed along, however, to a chamber where the dinner which had been prepared for him had remained untouched for many an hour, his eye fell upon a boy dressed in the habit of one of his own pages; and taking suddenly a step forward, he called the boy apart into a window, demanding eagerly, "Well, have you found your master?"