en-mother, looking at her own work, would surely have felt it.
Had Catherine foreseen the effect of her intrigues upon her son, would
she have recoiled from them? What a fearful spectacle was this! A king
born vigorous, and now so feeble; a mind powerfully tempered, shaken by
distrust; a man clothed with authority, conscious of no support; a firm
mind brought to the pass of having lost all confidence in itself! His
warlike valor had changed by degrees to ferocity; his discretion
to deceit; the refined and delicate love of a Valois was now a mere
quenchless thirst for pleasure. This perverted and misjudged great
man, with all the many facets of a noble soul worn-out,--a king without
power, a generous heart without a friend, dragged hither and thither by
a thousand conflicting intrigues,--presented the melancholy spectacle of
a youth, only twenty-four years old, disillusioned of life, distrusting
everybody and everything, now resolving to risk all, even his life, on
a last effort. For some time past he had fully understood his royal
mission, his power, his resources, and the obstacles which his mother
opposed to the pacification of the kingdom; but alas! this light now
burned in a shattered lantern.

Two men, whom Charles IX. loved sufficiently to protect under
circumstances of great danger,--Jean Chapelain, his physician, whom he
saved from the Saint-Bartholomew, and Ambroise Pare, with whom he went
to dine when Pare's enemies were accusing him of intending to poison the
king,--had arrived this evening in haste from the provinces, recalled
by the queen-mother. Both were watching their master anxiously. A few
courtiers spoke to them in a low voice; but the men of science made
guarded answers, carefully concealing the fatal verdict which was in
their minds. Every now and then the king would raise his heavy eyelids
and give his mother a furtive look which he tried to conceal from those
about him. Suddenly he sprang up and stood before the fireplace.

"Monsieur de Chiverni," he said abruptly, "why do you keep the title of
chancellor of Anjou and Poland? Are you in our service, or in that of
our brother?"

"I am all yours, sire," replied Chiverni, bowing low.

"Then come to me to-morrow; I intend to send you to Spain. Very strange
things are happening at the court of Madrid, gentlemen."

The king looked at his wife and flung himself back into his chair.

"Strange things are happening everywhere," said the Marechal de
Ta