Henry III.

and Catherine de' Medici failed in it completely; their government of fifteen years served only to make them lose their reputation for ability, and to aggravate for France the evils which it was their business to heal.

In 1575, a year only after Henry III.'s accession, revolt penetrated to the royal household.

The Duke of Alencon, the king's younger brother, who, since his brother's coronation, took the title of Duke of Anjou, escaped on the 15th of September from the Louvre by a window, and from Paris by a hole made in the wall of circumvallation.

He fled to Dreux, a town in his appanage, and put himself at the head of a large number of malcontents, nobles and burgesses, Catholic and Reformed, mustered around him under this name of no religious significance between the two old parties.