six in the evening before
Next came the principal courtiers , and then the bourgeois . It was one o'clock when they left the Louvre . Crillon and the French guards were about to follow , but the king signed to them to remain . It was near six in the evening before they arrived before the old abbey , where they saw the prior and the monks drawn up on the threshold to wait for his majesty . The Duc d'Anjou , a little before , had pleaded great fatigue , and had asked leave to retire to his hotel , which had been granted to him . His gentlemen had retired with him , as if to proclaim that they followed the duke and not the king , besides which , they did not wish to fatigue themselves before the morrow . At the door of the abbey the king dismissed his four favorites , that they also might take some repose .