89. Les Hospitalières
90. His Highness Monseigneur le Duc de Guise




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1.--_Frontispiece_.--Briquet at the window.
2.--"His face pleases me, and he has white hands and a well-kept beard."
3.--Chicot, on rising, found himself face to face with a soldier.
4.--"An ax!" cried Henri, and with a vigorous arm he struck down wood
and iron.
5.--"I said you were a traitor, and as a traitor you shall die."
6.--The prince was cold, stiff, and perfectly inanimate.




THE FORTY-FIVE GUARDSMEN

CHAPTER I.

THE PORTE ST. ANTOINE.


On the 26th of October, 1585, the barriers of the Porte St. Antoine
were, contrary to custom, still closed at half-past ten in the morning.
A quarter of an hour after, a guard of twenty Swiss, the favorite troops
of Henri III., then king, passed through these barriers, which were