When the work was done, the faubourgs were all destroyed, for it was the intention of the conquerors to occupy the place, which would be a most convenient basis of operations for any attack upon Paris, and it was desirable to contract the limits to be defended.  Fifteen hundred houses, many of them beautiful villas surrounded with orchards and pleasure gardens,—­were soon in flames, and afterwards razed to the ground.  The governor of the place, Count St. Pol, managed to effect his escape.  His place was now supplied by the Marquis of Montenegro, an Italian in the service of the Spanish king.  Such was the fate of Amiens in the month of March, 1597; such the result of the refusal by the citizens to accept the garrison urged upon them by Henry.

It would be impossible to exaggerate the consternation produced. throughout France by this astounding and altogether unlooked for event.  “It seemed,” said President De Thou, “as if it had extinguished in a moment the royal majesty and the French name.”  A few nights later than the date of this occurrence, Maximilian de Bethune (afterwards Duke of Sully, but then called Marquis de Rosny) was asleep in his bed in Paris.  He had returned, at past two o’clock in the morning, from a magnificent ball given by the Constable of France.  The capital had been uncommonly brilliant during the winter with banquets and dances, tourneys and masquerades, as if to cast a lurid glare over the unutterable misery of the people and the complete desolation of the country; but this entertainment—­given by Montmorency in honour of a fair dame with whom he supposed himself desperately in love, the young bride of a very ancient courtier—­surpassed in splendour every festival that had been heard of for years.  De Bethune had hardly lost himself in slumber when he was startled by Beringen, who, on drawing his curtains in this dead hour of the night, presented such a ghastly visage that the faithful friend of Henry instantly imagined some personal disaster to his well-beloved sovereign.  “Is the King dead?” he cried.

Being re-assured as to, this point and told to hasten to the Louvre, Rosny instantly complied with the command.  When he reached the palace he was admitted at once to the royal bed-chamber, where he found the king in the most unsophisticated of costumes, striding up and down the room, with his hands clasped together behind his head, and with an expression of agony upon his face:  Many courtiers were assembled there, stuck all of them like images against the wall, staring before them in helpless perplexity.

Henry rushed forward as Rosny entered, and wringing him by the hand, exclaimed, “Ah, my friend, what a misfortune, Amiens is taken!”

“Very well,” replied the financier, with unperturbed visage; “I have just completed a plan which will restore to your Majesty not only Amiens but many other places.”