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. But he was
apprised of their purpose by Poltrot, one of their number, and used
the pretext of indisposition to excuse his absence from the
penitential procession. _Davila_, lib. viii.

3. In the year 1565, an interview took place at Bayonne between
Catharine of Medicis, her son Charles IX., and the Queen of Spain,
attended by the famous Duke of Alva, and the Count of Benevento.
Many political discussions took place; and the opinion of Alva, as
expressed in the text, is almost literally versified from Davila's
account of the conference. "_Il Duca D'Alva, uomo di veemente
natura risolutamente diceva, che per distruggere la novita della
fede, e le sollevazioni di stato, bisognava levare le teste de'
papaveri, pescare i pesci grossi e non si curare di prendere le
ranocchie: erano questi i concetti proferiti da lui; perche cessati
i venti, l'onde della plebe facilmente si sarebbono da se stesse
composte e acquietate: aggiugneva, che un prencipe non puo far cosa
piu vituperosa ne piu dannosa a se stesso, quanto il permettere al
popolo il vivere secondo la loro coscienza, ponendo tanta varieta
di religioni in uno stato, quanto sono i capricci degli huomini e
le fantasie delle persone inquiete, aprendo la porta alla discordia
e alla confusione: e dimostrava con lunga commemorazione di
segnalati esempj, che la diversita della fede aveva sempre messo
l'arme in mano ai sudditi, e sempre sollevate atroci perfidie e
funeste rebellioni contra i superiori: onde conchiudeva nel fine,
che siccome le controversie della fede avevan sempre servito di
pretesto e di argumento alle sollevazioni de' mal conten