"Well, then, let us go thither; and if it be necessary to burn down the house to know who is in it, why we will do so." It was with this feeling, very discouraging for those concerned, that the four principal princes of the Christian world proceeded towards the Rue Saint-Antoine.

When they reached the Rue Cloche-Percée, Charles, who wished to confine the thing to his family, dismissed his attendants, desiring them to be near the Bastille at six o'clock in the morning, with two horses.

On reaching the house, they knocked, and tried to gain admittance, which the German porter decidedly and doggedly refused. Seeing that they could not succeed so, the duke de Guise, pretending to go away, went to the corner of the Rue Saint-Antoine, and there picked up one of those stones such as Ajax, Telamon, and Diomede upheaved three thousand years before, and dashed it with violence against the door, which flew open with the concussion, knocking down the German, who fell heavily, and with a loud cry, that aroused the garrison, which else ran a great risk of being surprised.

At this noise, la Mole, Coconnas, Marguerite, and Henriette were aroused. They blew out all the lights instantly, and opening the windows, went out into the balcony, when, seeing four men in the darkness, they began to shower down upon them all the projectiles within reach, and make a noise by striking the stone walls with the flat of their swords. Charles, the most eager of the assailants, received a silver ewer on his shoulder, the duke d'Anjou, a basin containing a jelly of oranges and cinnamon, and the duke de Guise, a haunch of venison.

Henry received nothing; he was quietly speaking to the porter, whom M. de Guise had tied to the door, and who replied by his eternal—

"Ich verstehe nicht."

The women ably backed the besieged army, and handed projectiles to them, which fell like hail.

"By the devil's death!" cried Charles, as he received on his head a stool which knocked his hat over his eyes, and on to his nose, "if they do not open this moment, I'll hang them all."

"My brother!" said Marguerite to la Mole, in a low voice.

"The king!" said he to Henriette.

"The king! the king!" said she to Coconnas, who was drawing a large chest to the window, intending it especially for the duke de Guise, whom, without knowing him, he had picked out as his peculiar antagonist-" the king, I tell you!" Coconnas let go the chest with an air of amazement. "The king?" said he.

“Yes, the king!"

"Then sound a retreat."

"Well, be it so. Marguerite and la Mole are off already.” "Which way?"

"Come this way, I tell you!" and taking him by the hand, Henriette led Coconnas by the secret door which led to the adjoining house, and having closed it after them, they all four fled by the way that led to the Rue Tizon.

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Ah, ah!" said Charles, “I think the garrison surrenders. Cousin," he continued, "take up the stone again, and serve the inner door as you have done the outer."

The duke burst the other door in with his foot.

"The torches! the torches!" said the king, and the lackeys having relighted them, came forward, and the king taking one, handed the other to the duke d'Anjou.

The duke de Guise went first, sword in hand, Henry brought up the rear.

They reached the first story, and in the dining-room found the relics of supper, with candelabra upset, furniture thrown over, and all that was not of metal, destroyed.

They went into the saloon, but there was no better clue to the late truants there than in the other room.

"There must be another way of egress," observed the king.

"Most probably," replied d'Anjou.

They searched on all sides, but found no door.

"Where is the porter?" inquired the king.

"I fastened him to the door," replied the duke de Guise. Henry looked out of the window, and observed— "He is there no longer."

"Devil's death!" said the king, 66 we shall learn nothing now."

"And really," added Henry, "you see plainly, sire, that nothing proves that my wife and the duke de Guise's sister

in-law have been in this house; and thus the best thing we can do

"Is," said Charles, "for me to foment my bruise, d'Anjou to wipe away the marks of the orange-jam, and Guise to rub the grease from off his ruff.”

And then they all went away, without so much as closing the door after them.

When they reached the Rue Saint-Antoine, the king said to M. d'Anjou and the duke de Guise—

"Which way are you going, gentlemen?"

"Sire, we are going to Nantouillet's, who expects my cousin of Lorraine and myself to supper. Will your majesty deign to accompany us?"

"No, I thank you; our way lies in an opposite direction. Will you have one of my torch-bearers?"

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No, I thank you, sire," was d'Anjou's reply.

"Good! He is afraid I should watch him," whispered Charles in Henry sear. Then taking him by the arm, he

said

Come, Harry, I will find you a supper to-night."

"Then we are not going back to the Louvre?" was Henry's

response.

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No, I tell you, you threefold thickhead! Come with me when I tell you-come, come!"

And he conducted Henry by the Rue Geoffroy-Lasnier.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MARIE TOUCHET.

THEY reached the Rue de la Mortellerie, and stopped before a small lone house in the middle of a garden, inclosed by high walls. Charles took a key from his pocket, and opened the door; and then desiring Henry and the torch-bearer to enter, he closed the door after him. One small window only was lighted, to which Charles, with a smile, pointed Henry's attention, saying

Harry, I told you, that when I left the Louvre I quitted hell, and when I come here I enter paradise."

"And who is the angel that guards the entrance to your Eden, sire?"

"You will see," replied Charles IX.; and making a sign to Henry to follow him without noise, he pushed open a first door, then a second, and paused on the threshold.

"Look!" he said.

Henry did so, and remained with his eyes fixed on as charming a picture as he ever saw. It was a female of eighteen or nineteen years of age, reposing at the foot of a bed, on which was a sleeping infant, whose two feet she held in her hands, pressing them to her lips, whilst her long chesnut hair fell down over them like waves of gold.

It was a picture of Albano's representing the Virgin and the infant Jesus.

“Oh, sire,” said the king of Navarre, "who is this charming creature?"

"The angel of my paradise, Harry; the only being who loves me for myself."

Henry smiled.

"Yes," said Charles, "for myself; for she loved me before she knew I was the king."

"Well, and since- ?"

"Well, and since," said Charles with a sigh, which proved that this glittering royalty was sometimes a burthen to him -"since she knew it, she still loves me. Watch!”

The king approached her gently, and on the lovely cheek of the young female impressed a kiss as light as that of the bee on a lily, yet it awoke her.

"Charles!" she murmured, opening her eyes.

"You see," said the king, "she calls me Charles: the queen says, sire.”

"Oh," exclaimed the young girl, "you are not alone!"

"No, dearest Marie, I have brought you another king, happier than myself, for he has no crown: more unhappy than me, for he has no Marie Touchet."

"Sire, it is, then, the king of Navarre?"

"It is, love."

Henry went towards her, and Charles took his right hand.

"Look at this hand, Marie," said he: "it is the hand of a good brother and a loyal friend; and but for this hand

"Well, sire!"

"But for this hand, this day, Marie, our boy had been fatherless."

Marie uttered a cry, seized Henry's hand, and kissed it. The king went to the bed where the child was still asleep. "Eh!" said he, "if this stout boy slept in the Louvre instead of sleeping in this small house, he would change the aspect of things at present, and perhaps for the future.*

"Sire," said Marie, "without offence to your majesty, I prefer his sleeping here, he sleeps better."

"You are right, Marie," said Charles IX. "Let us sup now." The two men passed into the dining-room, whilst the anxious and careful mother covered the little Charles, who slept soundly, with a warm wrapper, and then joined the two kings, between whom she seated herself, and helped both.

"Is it not well, Harry," asked Charles, "to have a place in the world in which we can eat and drink without the necessity of any one tasting your viands before you eat them yourself?"

"I believe, sire,” was Henry's rejoinder," that I can appreciate that better than any one."

"Marie," said the king, "I present to you one of the most intelligent and witty men I know, it is much to say, even at court, and, perhaps, I have understood him better than any one; for I speak of his mind, as well as of his heart."

"Sire," said Henry, "I hope that in exaggerating the one you have no doubt of the other."

"I do not exaggerate anything, Harry," replied the king. "He is, for one thing, a capital master of anagrams. Bid him make one on your name, and I will answer for it he will." Oh, what can you find in the name of a poor girl like me? What pleasing idea could such a name as Marie Touchet produce?"

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"Sire," said Henry, "it is too easy; there is no merit in finding such an one.”

*This natural child was afterwards the famous duke d'Angoulême, who died in 1650; and had he been legitimate, would have taken precedence of Henry III., Henry IV., Louis XIII., Louis XIV. &c., and altered the whole line of the royal succession of France.