my right into that of the old woman. Not wishing them to think I was
afraid of their sorcery, I held out my hands; Lorenzo took the right,
Cosmo the left, and each placed a hand in that of each woman, so that I
was like Jesus Christ between the two thieves. During the time that the
two witches were examining my hands Cosmo held a mirror before me and
asked me to look into it; his brother, meanwhile, was talking with the
two women in a language unknown to me. Neither Tavannes nor I could
catch the meaning of a single sentence. Before bringing the men here we
put seals on all the outlets of the laboratory, which Tavannes undertook
to guard until such time as, by my express orders, Bernard Palissy, and
Chapelain, my physician, could be brought there to examine thoroughly
the drugs the place contained and which were evidently made there. In
order to keep the Ruggieri ignorant of this search, and to prevent them
from communicating with a single soul outside, I put the two devils in
your lower rooms in charge of Solern's Germans, who are better than
the walls of a jail. Rene, the perfumer, is kept under guard in his own
house by Solern's equerry, and so are the two witches. Now, my sweetest,
inasmuch as I hold the keys of the whole cabal,--the kings of Thune, the
chiefs of sorcery, the gypsy fortune-tellers, the masters of the future,
the heirs of all past soothsayers,--I intend by their means to read
_you_, to know your heart; and, together, we will find out what is to
happen to us."

"I shall be glad if they can lay my heart bare before you," said Marie,
without the slightest fear.

"I know why sorcerers don't frighten you,--because you are a witch
yourself."

"Will you have a peach?" she said, offering him some delicious fruit on
a gold plate. "See these grapes, these pears; I went to Vincennes myself
and gathered them for you."

"Yes, I'll eat them; there is no poison there except a philter from your
hands."

"You ought to eat a great deal of fruit, Charles; it would cool your
blood, which you heat by such excitements."

"Must I love you less?"

"Perhaps so," she said. "If the things you love injure you--and I have
feared it--I shall find strength in my heart to refuse them. I adore
Charles more than I love the king; I want the man to live, released from
the tortures that make him grieve."

"Royalty has ruined me."

"Yes," she replied. "If you were only a poor prince, like your
brother-in-law of Navarre, witho