going with such a
following? They will never suffer you to enter the Louvre with more than
two or three attendants, which I would not advise you to do. For this
plot does not end here. I have seen some persons so little sensible of
the loss they have sustained that they cannot even simulate the grief
they should feel. Go back, monsieur. There is enough for you to do
without going to the Louvre."

Persuaded by Vitry's solemnity, and by what he knew in his heart, Sully
faced about and set out to retrace his steps. But presently he was
overtaken by a messenger from the Queen, begging him to come at once
to her at the Louvre, and to bring as few persons as possible with him.
"This proposal," he writes, "to go alone and deliver myself into the
hands of my enemies, who filled the Louvre, was not calculated to allay
my suspicions."

Moreover he received word at that moment that an exempt of the guards
and a force of soldiers were already at the gates of the Arsenal, that
others had been sent to the Temple, where the powder was stored, and
others again to the treasurer of the Exchequer to stop all the money
there.

"Convey to the Queen my duty and service," he bade the messenger, "and
assure her that until she acquaints me with her orders I shall continue
assiduously to attend the affairs of my office." And with that he went
to shut himself up in the Bastille, whither he was presently followed
by a stream of her Majesty's envoys, all bidding him to the Louvre.
But Sully, ill as he was, and now utterly prostrated by all that he had
endured, put himself to bed and made of his indisposition a sufficient
excuse.

Yet on the morrow he allowed himself to be persuaded to obey her
summons, receiving certain assurances that he had no ground for any
apprehensions. Moreover, he may by now have felt a certain security in
the esteem in which the Parisians held him. An attempt against him in
the Louvre itself would prove that the blow that had killed his master
was not the independent act of a fanatic, as it was being represented;
and vengeance would follow swiftly upon the heads of those who would
thus betray themselves of having made of that poor wretch's fanaticism
an instrument to their evil ends.

In that assurance he went, and he has left on record the burning
indignation aroused in him at the signs of satisfaction, complacency,
and even mirth that he discovered in that house of death. The
Queen herself, however, overwrought by