is powerful enough to inspire such audacity in those who are sent on first to attack us? Is there not——?"
"The King of Navarre," said the Cardinal.
"A gaby who bows low in my presence," replied the Duke. "That Florentine woman's graces have blinded you, I think——"
"Oh, I have thought of that already," said the prelate. "If I aim at a gallant intimacy with her, is it not that I may read to the bottom of her heart?"
"She has no heart," said his brother sharply. "She is even more ambitious than we are."
"You are a brave commander," said the Cardinal; "but take my word for it, our skirts are very near touching, and I made Mary Stuart watch her narrowly before you ever suspected her. Catherine has no more religion in her than my shoe. If she is not the soul of the conspiracy, it is not for lack of goodwill; but we will draw her out and see how far she will support us. Till now I know for certain that she has not held any communication with the heretics."
"It is time that we should lay everything before the King, and the Queen-mother, who knows nothing," said the Duke, "and that is the only proof of her innocence. La Renaudie will understand from my arrangements that we are warned. Last night Nemours must have been following up the detachments of the Reformed party, who were coming in by the cross-roads, and the conspirators will be compelled to attack us at Amboise; I will let them all in.—Here," and he pointed to the three steep slopes of rock on which the Château de Blois is built, just as Chiverni had done a moment since, "we should have a fight with no result; the Huguenots could come and go at will. Blois is a hall with four doors, while Amboise is a sack."
"I will not leave the Florentine Queen," said the Cardinal.
"We have made one mistake," remarked the Duke, playing with his dagger, tossing it in the air, and catching it again by the handle; "we ought to have behaved to her as to the Reformers, giving her liberty to move, so as to take her in the act."
The Cardinal looked at his brother for a minute, shaking his head.
"What does Pardaillan want?" the Duke exclaimed, seeing this young gentleman coming along the terrace. Pardaillan was to become famous for his fight with la Renaudie, in which both were killed.
"Monseigneur, a youth sent here by the Queen's furrier is at the gate, and says that he has a set of ermine to deliver to Her Majesty. Is he to be admitted?"
"To be sure; an ermine surcoat she spoke of but yesterday," said the Cardinal. "Let the shop-clerk in. She will need the mantle for her journey by the Loire."
"Which way did he come, that he was not stopped before reaching the gate?" asked the Grand Master.
"I do not know," said Pardaillan.
"I will go to see him in the Queen's rooms," said la Balafré. "Tell him to await her lever in the guardroom. But, Pardaillan, is he young?"
"Yes, Monseigneur; he says he is Lecamus' son."
"Lecamus is a good Catholic," said the Cardinal, who, like the Duke, was gifted with a memory like Cæsar's. "The priest of Saint-Pierre aux Bœufs trusts him, for he is officer of the peace for the Palace."
"Make this youth chat with the Captain of the Scotch Guard, all the same," said the Grand Master, with an emphasis which gave the words a very pointed meaning. "But Ambroise is at the château; through him we shall know at once if he really is the son of Lecamus, who was formerly his very good friend. Ask for Ambroise Paré."
At this moment the Queen came towards the brothers, who hurried to meet her with marks of respect, in which Catherine never failed to discern deep irony.
"Gentlemen," said she, "will you condescend to inform me of what is going on? Is the widow of your late sovereign of less account in your esteem than Messieurs de Vieilleville, Birague, and Chiverni?"
"Madame," said the Cardinal, with an air of gallantry, "our first duty as men, before all matters of politics, is not to alarm ladies by false rumors. This morning, indeed, we have had occasion to confer on State affairs. You will pardon my brother for having in the first instance given orders on purely military matters which must be indifferent to you—the really important points remain to be discussed. If you approve, we will all attend the lever of the King and Queen; it is close on the hour."
"Why, what is happening, Monsieur le Grand Maître?" asked Catherine, affecting terror.
"The Reformation, madame, is no longer a mere heresy; it is a party which is about to take up arms and seize the King."
Catherine, with the Cardinal, the Duke, and the gentlemen, made their way towards the staircase by the corridor, which was crowded with courtiers who had not the right of entrée, and who ranged themselves against the wall.
Gondi, who had been studying the Princes of Lorraine while Catherine was conversing with them, said in good Tuscan and in Catherine's ear these two words, which became bywords, and which express one aspect of that royally powerful nature:
"Odiate e aspettate!" Hate and wait.
Pardaillan, who had delivered to the officer on guard at the gatehouse the order to admit the messenger from the Queen's furrier, found Christophe standing outside the portico and staring at the façade built by good King Louis XII., whereon there was at that time an even more numerous array of sculptured figures of the coarsest buffoonery—if we may judge by what has survived. The curious will detect, for instance, a figure of a woman carved on the capital of one of the columns of the gateway holding up her skirts, and saucily exhibiting "what Brunel displayed to Marphise" to a burly monk crouching in the capital of the corresponding column at the other jamb of this gate, above which once stood a statue of Louis XII. Several of the windows of this front, ornamented in this grotesque taste, and now unfortunately destroyed, amused, or seemed to amuse, Christophe, whom the gunners of the Guard were already pelting with their pleasantries.
"He would like to be lodged there, he would," said the sergeant-at-arms, patting his store of charges for his musket, which hung from his belt in the sugar-loaf-shaped cartridges.
"Hallo, you from Paris, you never saw so much before!" said a soldier.
"He recognizes good King Louis!" said another.
Christophe affected not to hear them, and tried to look even more helplessly amazed, so that his look of blank stupidity was an excellent recommendation to Pardaillan.
"The Queen is not yet risen," said the young officer. "Come and wait in the guardroom."
Christophe slowly followed Pardaillan. He purposely lingered to admire the pretty covered balcony with an arched front, where, in the reign of Louis XII., the courtiers could wait under cover till the hour of reception if the weather was bad, and where at this moment some of the gentlemen attached to the Guises were grouped; for the staircase, still so well preserved, which led to their apartments is at the end of that gallery, in a tower of which the architecture is greatly admired by the curious.
"Now, then! have you come here to study graven images?" cried Pardaillan, seeing Lecamus riveted in front of the elegant stonework of the outer parapet which unites—or, if you will, separates—the columns of each archway.
Christophe followed the young captain to the grand staircase, not without glancing at this almost Moorish-looking structure from top to bottom with an expression of ecstasy. On this fine morning the court was full
