, on the contrary, she had stopped the proceedings which previously
to her reconciliation with the Duc de Guise had been commenced against
his brother, determined to demand satisfaction in his own person; and he
accordingly despatched a challenge to the Chevalier, which was
immediately accepted by the hot-headed young noble. Seconds were
appointed, and in compliance with the barbarous custom of the time the
four combatants fought on horseback at the Porte St. Antoine. At the
first pass Francois de Guise was wounded, but at the third his sword
pierced the body of his antagonist, who fell from his saddle and expired
a few minutes afterwards. Notwithstanding this tragical result, however,
the murderer alike of the father and the son boldly returned to Paris,
where he was visited and congratulated by numbers of the nobles, who,
instead of shrinking from all contact with a man who had desolated the
hearth and home of a sorrowing and now childless widow, were loud in
their encomiums on his bravery and skill. Nor was this the most
revolting feature of the case; for it is on record that Marie de Medicis
herself, in her eagerness to retain the alliance of his family, no
sooner learnt that the Chevalier had received a wound in the encounter
than she despatched an officer of her household to convey to him her
regret and to inquire into the extent of his hurt, overlooking, with
extraordinary inconsistency, or still more reprehensible recklessness,
the fact that only a few weeks previously she had instructed the
Parliament to put him upon his trial for the murder of his first victim.

The unslumbering eye of Heaven, however, and the unerring fiat of divine
justice, proved less oblivious of this monstrous crime. In the course of
the following year, while at the fortress of Baux near Arles, Francois
de Guise was in the act of firing off a cannon, which burst and wounded
him in so frightful a manner that he expired two hours subsequently in
extreme torture, thus partially expiating by a death of agony a youth of
misrule and bloodshed.[165]

The murder of the younger De Luz had no sooner reached the ears of M. de
Luynes than he resolved to avail himself of the circumstance to awaken
the ambition of Louis, and to induce him to fling off the shackles of
maternal authority. Eager as he had long been for an opportunity of
effecting this object, his attempts had hitherto been negatived by the
ceaseless energy with which Marie de Medicis had