On the 17th of September, in his manifesto, he gave as reasons for his revolt, excessive taxation, waste of the public revenues, the feebleness of the royal authority, incapable as it was of putting a stop to the religious troubles, and the disgrace which had been inflicted upon himself "by pernicious ministers who desire to have the government in their sole patronage, excluding from it the foremost and the most illustrious of the court, and devouring all that there is remaining to the poor people." He protested his devotion to the king his brother, at the same time declaring war against the Guises.
King Henry of Navarre, testifying little sympathy with the Duke of Anjou, remained at court, abandoning himself apparently to his pleasures alone.
Two of his faithful servants (the poet-historian D'Aubigne was one of them) heard him one night sighing as he lay in bed, and humming half aloud this versicle from the eighty-eighth Psalm:-- "Removed from friends, I sigh alone, In a loathed dungeon laid, where none A visit will vouchsafe to me, Confined past hope of liberty." "Sir," said D'Aubigne eagerly, "it is true, then, that the Sprit of God worketh and dwelleth in you still?
You sigh unto God because of the absence of your friends and faithful servants; and all the while they are together, sighing because of yours and laboring for your freedom.

But you have only tears in your eyes, and they, arms in hand, are fighting your enemies.

As for us two, we were talking of taking to flight tomorrow, when your voice made us draw the curtain.

Bethink you, sir, that, after us, the hands that will serve you would not dare refuse to employ poison and the knife." Henry, much moved, resolved to follow the example of the Duke of Anjou.

His departure was fixed for the 3d of February, 1576.