The Hawthorn of the Cemetery of the Innocents.
As soon as Marguerite reached her own apartments she tried in vain to divine the words which Catharine de Médicis had whispered to Charles IX., and which had cut short the terrible council of life and death which was taking place.
She spent a part of the morning in attending to La Mole, and the rest in trying to guess the enigma, which her mind could not discover.
The King of Navarre remained a prisoner in the Louvre, the persecution of the Huguenots went on hotter than ever. The terrible night was followed by a day of massacre still more horrible. No longer the bells rang the tocsin, but Te Deums, and the echoes of these joyous notes, resounding amid fire and slaughter, were perhaps even more lugubrious in sunlight than had been the last night’s knell sounding in darkness. This was not all. A strange thing had happened: a hawthorn-tree, which had blossomed in the spring, and which, as usual, had lost its odorous flowers in the month of June, had blossomed again during the night, and the Catholics, who saw a miracle in this event, spread the report of the miracle far and wide, thus making God their accomplice; and with cross and banners they marched in a procession to the Cemetery of the Innocents, where this hawthorn-tree was blooming.
This method of acquiescence which Heaven seemed to show in the massacres redoubled the ardor of the assassins, and while every street, every square, every alley-way of the city continued to present a scene of desolation, the Louvre had become the common tomb for all Protestants who had been shut up there when the signal was given. The King of Navarre, the Prince de Condé, and La Mole were the only survivors.
Assured as to La Mole, whose wounds, as she had declared the evening before, were severe but not dangerous, Marguerite’s mind was now occupied with one single idea: that was to save her husband’s life, which was still threatened. No doubt the first sentiment which actuated the wife was one of generous pity for a man for whom, as the Béarnais himself had said, she had sworn, if not love, at least alliance; but there was, beside, another sentiment not so pure, which had penetrated the queen’s heart.
Marguerite was ambitious, and had foreseen almost the certainty of royalty in her marriage with Henry de Bourbon. Navarre, though beset on one side by the kings of France and on the other by the kings of Spain, who strip by strip had absorbed half of its territory, might become a real kingdom with the French Huguenots for subjects, if only Henry de Bourbon should fulfil the hopes which the courage shown by him on the infrequent occasions vouchsafed him of drawing his sword had aroused.
Marguerite, with her keen, lofty intellect, foresaw and reckoned on all this. So if she lost Henry she lost not only a husband, but a throne.
As she was absorbed in these reflections she heard some one knocking at the door of the secret corridor. She started, for only three persons came by that door — the King, the queen mother, and the Duc d’Alençon. She opened the closet door, made a gesture of silence to Gillonne and La Mole, and then went to let her visitor in.
It was the Duc d’Alençon.
The young prince had not been seen since the night before. For a moment, Marguerite had conceived the idea of asking his intercession for the King of Navarre, but a terrible idea restrained her. The marriage had taken place against his wishes. François detested Henry, and had evinced his neutrality toward the Béarnais only because he was convinced that Henry and his wife had remained strangers to each other. A mark of interest shown by Marguerite in her husband might thrust one of the three threatening poniards into his heart instead of turning it aside. Marguerite, therefore, on perceiving the young prince, shuddered more than she had shuddered at seeing the King or even the queen mother. Nevertheless no one could have told by his appearance that anything unusual was taking place either in the city or at the Louvre. He was dressed with his usual elegance. His clothes and linen breathed of those perfumes which Charles IX. despised, but of which the Duc d’Anjou and he made continual use.
A practised eye like Marguerite’s, however, could detect the fact that in spite of his rather unusual pallor and in spite of a slight trembling in his hands — delicate hands, as carefully treated as a lady’s — he felt a deep sense of joy in the bottom of his heart. His entrance was in no wise different from usual. He went to his sister to kiss her, but Marguerite, instead of offering him her cheek, as she would have done had it been King Charles or the Duc d’Anjou, made a courtesy and allowed him to kiss her forehead.
The Duc d’Alençon sighed and touched his bloodless lips to her brow.
Then taking a seat he began to tell his sister the sanguinary news of the night, the admiral’s lingering and terrible death, Téligny’s instantaneous death caused by a bullet. He took his time and emphasized all the bloody details of that night, with that love of blood characteristic of himself and his two brothers; Marguerite allowed him to tell his story.
“You did not come to tell me this only, brother?” she then asked.
The Duc d’Alençon smiled.
“You have something else to say to me?”
“No,” replied the duke; “I am waiting.”
“Waiting! for what?”
“Have you not told me, dearest Marguerite,” said the duke, drawing his armchair close up to his sister’s, “that your marriage with the King of Navarre was contracted against your wishes?”
“Yes, no doubt. I did not know the Prince of Béarn when he was proposed to me as a husband.”
“And after you came to know him, did you not tell me that you felt no love for him?”
“I told you so; it is true.”
“Was it not your opinion that this marriage would make you unhappy?”
“My dear François,” said Marguerite, “when a marriage is not the height of happiness it is almost always the depth of wretchedness.”
“Well, then, my dear Marguerite, as I said to you — I am waiting.”
“But what are you waiting for?”
“For you to display your joy!”
“What have I to be joyful for?”
“The unexpected chance which offers itself for you to resume your liberty.”
“My liberty?” replied Marguerite, who was determined to compel the prince to express his whole thought.
“Yes; your liberty! You will now be separated from the King of Navarre.”
“Separated!” said Marguerite, fastening her eyes on the young prince.
The Duc d’Alençon tried to endure his sister’s look, but his eyes soon avoided hers with embarrassment.
“Separated!” repeated Marguerite; “let us talk this over, brother, for I should like to understand all you mean, and how you propose to separate us.”
“Why,” murmured the duke, “Henry is a Huguenot.”
“No doubt; but he made no secret of his religion, and that was known when we were married.”
“Yes;
