bah! bah!” said Charles; “I wish I were sure nothing else would be the cause of my death. I should then bury every one here, including Harry, who will one day succeed us all, as Nostradamus prophesies.”
Catharine frowned.
“My son,” she said, “mistrust especially all things that appear impossible, and meanwhile take care of yourself.”
“Only two or three blasts to rejoice my dogs, poor things; they are wearied to death with doing nothing. I ought to have let them loose on the Huguenots; that would have done them good!”
And Charles IX. left his mother’s room, went into his armory, took down a horn, and played on it with a vigor that would have done honor to Roland himself. It was difficult to understand how so weak a frame and such pale lips could blow a blast so powerful.
Catharine, in truth, was awaiting some one as she had told her son. A moment after he had left her, one of her women came and spoke to her in a low voice. The queen smiled, rose, and saluting the persons who formed her court, followed the messenger.
Réné the Florentine, the man to whom on the eve of Saint Bartholomew the King of Navarre had given such a diplomatic reception, had just entered her oratory.
“Ah, here you are, Réné,” said Catharine, “I was impatiently waiting for you.”
Réné bowed.
“Did you receive the note I wrote you yesterday?”
“I had that honor.”
“Did you make another trial, as I asked you to do, of the horoscope cast by Ruggieri, and agreeing so well with the prophecy of Nostradamus, which says that all my three sons shall reign? For several days past, affairs have decidedly changed, Réné, and it has occurred to me that possibly fate has become less threatening.”
“Madame,” replied Réné, shaking his head, “your majesty knows well that affairs do not change fate; on the contrary, fate controls affairs.”
“Still, you have tried the sacrifice again, have you not?”
“Yes, madame,” replied Réné; “for it is my duty to obey you in all things.”
“Well — and the result?”
“Still the same, madame.”
“What, the black lamb uttered its three cries?”
“Just the same as before, madame.”
“The sign of three cruel deaths in my family,” murmured Catharine.
“Alas!” said Réné.
“What then?”
“Then, madame, there was in its entrails that strange displacement of the liver which we had already observed in the first two — it was wrong side up!”
“A change of dynasty! Still — still — still the same!” muttered Catharine; “yet we must fight against this, Réné,” she added.
Réné shook his head.
“I have told your majesty,” he said, “that fate rules.”
“Is that your opinion?” asked Catharine.
“Yes, madame.”
“Do you remember Jeanne d’Albret’s horoscope?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Repeat it to me, I have quite forgotten it.”
“Vives honorata,” said Réné, “morieris reformidata, regina amplificabere.”
“That means, I believe,” said Catharine, “Thou shalt live honored— and she lacked common necessaries, poor thing! Thou shalt die feared— and we laughed at her. Thou shalt be greater than thou hast been as a queen— and she is dead, and sleeps in a tomb on which we have not even engraved her name.”
“Madame, your majesty does not translate the vives honorata rightly. The Queen of Navarre lived honored; for all her life she enjoyed the love of her children, the respect of her partisans; respect and love all the more sincere in that she was poor.”
“Yes,” said Catharine, “I grant you the vives honorata; but morieris reformidata: how will you explain that?”
“Nothing more easy: Thou shalt die feared.”
“Well — did she die feared?”
“So much so that she would not have died had not your majesty feared her. Then —As a queen thou shalt be greater; or, Thou shalt be greater than thou hast been as a queen. This is equally true, madame; for in exchange for a terrestrial crown she has doubtless, as a queen and martyr, a celestial crown; and, besides, who knows what the future may reserve for her posterity?”
Catharine was excessively superstitious; she was even more alarmed at Réné‘s coolness than at the steadfastness of the auguries, and as in her case any scrape was a chance for her boldly to master the situation, she said suddenly to him, without any other transition than the working of her own thoughts:
“Are any perfumes come from Italy?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Send me a boxful.”
“Of which?”
“Of the last, of those”—
Catharine stopped.
“Of those the Queen of Navarre was so fond of?” asked Réné.
“Exactly.”
“I need not prepare them, for your majesty is now as skilful at them as I am.”
“You think so?” said Catharine. “They certainly succeed.”
“Has your majesty anything more to say to me?” asked the perfumer.
“Nothing,” replied Catharine, thoughtfully; “at least I think not, only if there is any change in the sacrifices, let me know it in time. By the way, let us leave the lambs, and try the hens.”
“Alas, madame, I fear that in changing the victim we shall not change the presages.”
“Do as I tell you.”
The perfumer bowed and left the apartment.
Catharine mused for a short time, then rose and returning to her bedchamber, where her women awaited her, announced the pilgrimage to Montfaucon for the morrow.
The news of this pleasure party caused great excitement in the palace and great confusion in the city: the ladies prepared their most elegant toilets; the gentlemen, their finest arms and steeds; the tradesmen closed their shops, and the populace killed a few straggling Huguenots, in order to furnish company for
