_ [_Looking upon_ GUISE.]
Be witness, heaven, I gave him treble warning!
He's gone--no more.--Disperse, and think upon it.
Beware my sword, which, if I once unsheath,
By all the reverence due to thrones and crowns,
Nought shall atone the vows of speedy justice,
Till fate to ruin every traitor brings,
That dares the vengeance of indulgent kings. [_Exuent._
Footnotes:
1. The Council of Sixteen certainly offered to place twenty thousand
disciplined citizens of Paris at the devotion of the Duke of Guise;
and here the intended parallel came close: for Shaftesbury used to
boast, that he could raise the like number of brisk boys in the
city of London, by merely holding up his finger.
2. During the cabals of the Council of Sixteen, the Duke of Aumale
approached Paris with five hundred veteran horse, levied in the
disaffected province of Picardy. Jean Conti, one of the sheriffs
(_Echevins_) of Paris, was tampered with to admit them by St
Martin's gate; but as he refused, the leaguers stigmatised him as a
heretic and favourer of Navarre. Another of these officers
consented to open to Aumale the gate of St Denis, of which the keys
were intrusted to him.
The conspirators had determined, as is here expressed, to seize the
person of the king, when he should attend the procession of the
Flagellants, as he was wont to do in time of Lent.
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