Note 238 — Chapter VIII

He had no sooner seated himself than Mayenne, Bouillon, and others of the cabal which had been formed against him proposed that so favourable an opportunity should not be lost of taking his life, and thus ridding the country of the incubus by which it had so long been oppressed in the person of an insolent foreigner; but the project was no sooner communicated to M. de Condé than he imperatively forbade all violence beneath his own roof. Meanwhile Concini, although he did not fail to perceive by what was taking place about him that he had placed himself in jeopardy by thus braving his enemies, nevertheless maintained the most perfect self-possession, and was suffered to depart in safety. On the following morning, however, he received a communication from the Prince, who, after assuring him that he had experienced great difficulty in restraining the Princes and nobles into whose presence he had forced himself on the preceding day from executing summary justice upon him in order to avenge their several wrongs; and that they had, moreover, threatened to abandon his own cause should he persist in according his protection to an individual whom they were resolved to pursue even to the death, concluded by declaring that it would thenceforward be impossible for him to maintain the pledge which he had given, and advising him to lose no time in retiring to Normandy, of which province he was lieutenant-general.[238]