told her son.
women came and spake to her in a low voice.

A minute after he had left her, one of her The queen smiled, rose, and saluting the persons who formed her court, followed the messenger.

René the Florentine, he to whom on the eve of St. Bartholomew the king of Navarre had given diplomatic a reception, entered the oratory.

Have you

"Ah! is it you, René?" said Catherine. renewed, as I desired, the trial of the horoscope drawn by Ruggieri, and which agrees so well with the prophecy of Nostradamus, which says, that all my three sons shall reign?"

"Yes, madame,” replied René; "for it is my duty to obey you in all things."

"Well-and the result?"

"Still the same, madame."

"What, the black lamb has uttered three cries?"

"The sign of three cruel deaths in my family," murmured Catherine.

"Alas!" said René.

"What then?"

"Then, madame, there was in its entrails that strange displacing of the liver, which we had already observed in the two first."

"A change of dynasty still-still-still!" muttered Catherine;" yet this must be changed, René," she added.

René shook his head.

"I have told your majesty," he said, "that destiny rules

all."

"Is that your opinion?" asked Catherine. "Yes, madame."

“Do you remember d'Albret's horoscope?” "Yes, madame."

"Let us repeat it, and once more consider it. I have quite forgotten it. Repeat it to me, good René."

"Vives honorata," said René, "morieris reformidata, regina amplificabere."

"Which means, I believe," said Catherine, "Thou shalt live honoured-and she lacked common necessaries; Thou shalt die feared-and we laughed at her; Thou shalt be greater

66

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 honoured; 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 Catherine, "I pass over the vives honorata; but morieris reformidata: how will you explain that?"

66

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?"

Catherine was superstitious to an excess; she was more alarmed at René's cool pertinacity than at the pertinacity of the auguries; and she said suddenly to him, without any other transition than the working of her own thoughts

"Are any Italian perfumes arrived?"

"Yes, madame."

"Send me a box full."

"Of which?"

"Of the last, of those"

Catherine stopped.

"Of those the queen of Navarre was so fond of?" asked René."

"Exactly."

"I need not prepare them, for your majesty is now as skilful at them as myself."

"You think so?" said Catherine. succeed."

66

They certainly do

"Your majesty has nothing more to say to me?" asked the perfumer.

"Nothing," replied Catherine, thoughtfully; "only if there is any change in the sacrifices, let me know it in time. 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.

Catherine 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 party of pleasure threw the palace and city into no small bustle: the ladies prepared their most elegant toilettes; 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 to the dead admiral.

La Mole had passed a miserable day, and this miserable day had followed three or four others equally miserable. M. d'Alençon, to please his sister, had installed him in his apartments, but had not since seen him; he felt himself, like a poor deserted child, deprived of the tender cares, the soothing attentions of two women, the recollection of one of whom occupied him perpetually. He had heard of her through Ambroise Paré, whom she had sent to him, but Ambroise was an old fellow to whom he could not talk of his passion. Gillonne, indeed, had come once, as if of her own accord, to ask after him, and the visit was to him like a sunbeam darting into a dungeon, but Gillonne had not repeated it.

As soon, then, as he heard of this splendid assemblage of the court on the morrow, La Mole requested of M. d'Alençon the favour of being allowed to accompany it. The duke did not even trouble himself to inquire whether La Mole was sufficiently recovered to bear the fatigue, but merely answered.

66

Humph! well, let him have one of my horses."

This was all la Mole wanted; maître Ambroise Paré came to dress his wounds, and la Mole explained to him the necessity he was under of mounting on horseback, and prayed him to dress his wounds with more than usual care.

The two wounds were closed, both that on the breast and that in the shoulder, and the latter alone pained him. They were both in a fair way of healing; maître Ambroise Paré covered them with gummed taffetas, a remedy greatly in vogue then, and promised la Mole that if he did not exert himself too

much, everything would go well: la Mole next employed a part of the money he had received when he left his family, in purchasing a very handsome white satin doublet, and one of the richest embroidered cloaks he could procure. He also bought a pair of boots of perfumed leather, worn at that period. He dressed himself quickly, looked in his glass, and found that he was suitably attired, arranged, and perfumed.

Whilst he was thus engaged in the Louvre, another scene, of a similar kind, was going on at the Hotel de Guise. A tall gentleman, with red hair, was examining, before a glass, a red mark, which went across his face very disagreeably; he coloured and perfumed his moustache, and as he did so, in vain tried to conceal this wheal; in spite of all the cosmetics applied, it would still appear. The gentleman then put on a magnificent dress which a tailor had brought to his apartment without any commands from him. Thus attired, scented, and armed from head to foot, he descended the staircase, and begun to pat a large black horse, whose beauty would have been matchless but for a small scar in the flank, caused by a sword wound.

Yet, enchanted with the good steed as he found him, the gentleman, whom, no doubt, our readers have recognised, was soon on his back, and for a quarter of an hour showed off in the court of the Hotel de Guise his skill as a horseman, amidst the neighings of his courser, and Mordis out of all number. Then the good steed, completely subdued, recognised by his obedience and subjection the control of the cavalier, but the victory had not been obtained without noise, and this noise had drawn to the windows a lady, whom the cavalier saluted respectfully, and who smiled at him in the most agreeable manner. Turning then towards her first gentleman

"M. d'Arguzon," she said, "let us set out for the Louvre, and keep an eye, I beg, on the comte Annibal de Coconnas, for he is wounded, and consequently still weak; and I would not for all the world any accident should happen to him. That would make the huguenots laugh, for the owe him a spite since the blessed night of Saint Bartholomew."

And madame de Nevers, mounting her horse, went joyfully towards the Louvre, which was the general rendezvous.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BODY OF A DEAD ENEMY ALWAYS SMELLS SWEET.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon, when a file of cavaliers, glittering with gold, jewels, and splendid garments, appeared in the Rue Saint-Denis.

Nothing can be imagined more splendid than this spectacle. The rich and elegant silk dresses, bequeathed as a splendid fashion by François I. to his successors, had not yet been changed into those formal and sombre vestments, which came into fashion under Henry III.: so that, the costume of Charles IX., less rich, but perhaps more elegant than those of preceding reigns, displayed its perfect harmony. Pages, esquires, gentlemen of low degree, dogs, and horses-all were there, and formed of the royal cortège an absolute army. Behind this army came the people, or rather the people were everywhere. That morning, in presence of Catherine and the duke de Guise, Charles had, as a perfectly natural thing, spoken before Henry of Navarre of going to visit the gibbet of Montfaucon, or rather the mutilated corpse of the admiral, which had been suspended to it. Henry's first movement had been to dispense with accompanying them; this Catherine had expected at the first words he said, expressing his repugnance, and she exchanged a glance and a smile with the duke de Guise; Henry surprised both and understood them, then suddenly turning round, he said:

"But why should I not go? I am a catholic, and am bound to my new religion."

Then addressing the king

"Your majesty may reckon on my company," he said; " and I shall be always happy to accompany you wheresoever you may go;" and he threw a sweeping glance around, to see whose brows might be frowning.

And, perhaps of all this cortège, the person who was looked at with the greatest curiosity, was this son without a mother— this king without a kingdom-this huguenot turned catholic. His long and marked countenance, his somewhat vulgar