La Rochefoucauld, with whom the king had been laughing and joking up to eleven o'clock the evening before, heard a knocking at his door, in the king's name; it is opened; enter six men in masks and poniard him.

The new Queen of Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, had gone to bed by express order of her mother Catherine.

"Just as I was asleep," says she, "behold a man knocking with feet and hands at the door and shouting, Navarre! Navarre! My nurse, thinking it was the king my husband, runs quickly to the door and opens it.

It was a gentleman named M.de Leran, who had a sword-cut on the elbow, a gash from a halberd on the arm, and was still pursued by four archers, who all came after him into my bedroom.

He, wishing to save himself, threw himself on to my bed; as for me, feeling this man who had hold of me, I threw myself out of bed towards the wall, and he after me, still holding me round the body.