silken curtains was like a tomb. Beside her
husband, close to his pillow, sat Mary Stuart, and near her the Cardinal
de Lorraine. Catherine was seated in a chair at a little distance. The
famous Jean Chapelain, the physician on duty (who was afterwards chief
physician to Charles IX.) was standing before the fireplace. The deepest
silence reigned. The young king, pale and shrunken, lay as if buried in
his sheets, his pinched little face scarcely showing on the pillow. The
Duchesse de Guise, sitting on a stool, attended Queen Mary, while on the
other side, near Catherine, in the recess of a window, Madame de Fiesque
stood watching the gestures and looks of the queen-mother; for she knew
the dangers of her position.

In the hall, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Monsieur de
Cypierre, governor of the Duc d'Orleans and now appointed governor of
the town, occupied one corner of the fireplace with the two Gondis.
Cardinal de Tournon, who in this crisis espoused the interests of the
queen-mother on finding himself treated as an inferior by the Cardinal
de Lorraine, of whom he was certainly the ecclesiastical equal,
talked in a low voice to the Gondis. The marshals de Vieilleville
and Saint-Andre and the keeper of the seals, who presided at the
States-general, were talking together in a whisper of the dangers to
which the Guises were exposed.

The lieutenant-general of the kingdom crossed the room on his entrance,
casting a rapid glance about him, and bowed to the Duc d'Orleans whom he
saw there.

"Monseigneur," he said, "this will teach you to know men. The Catholic
nobility of the kingdom have gone to pay court to a heretic prince,
believing that the States-general will give the regency to the heirs of
a traitor who long detained in prison your illustrious grandfather."

Then having said these words, which were destined to plough a furrow
in the heart of the young prince, he passed into the bedroom, where the
king was not so much asleep as plunged in a heavy torpor. The Duc de
Guise was usually able to correct the sinister aspect of his scarred
face by an affable and pleasing manner, but on this occasion, when
he saw the instrument of his power breaking in his very hands, he was
unable to force a smile. The cardinal, whose civil courage was equal to
his brother's military daring, advanced a few steps to meet him.

"Robertet thinks that little Pinard is sold to the queen-mother," he
whispered, leading the duke in