requetes, and two other Huguenots be added to the commission.

The king and De Retz both endeavored to persuade the admiral to permit
himself to be transported, for safety's sake, to the Louvre; but Coligny's
friends would not consent to a removal which might endanger his life.
Charles requested, before he left, to see the ball extracted from the
wounded arm, and examined it with apparent curiosity. Catharine took it
next, and said that she was glad that it had been removed, for she
remembered that, when the Duke of Guise was shot, the physicians
repeatedly said that, even if the ball were poisoned, there was no danger
to be apprehended when once the ball was taken out. Many afterward
regarded it as a significant circumstance that the queen mother's mind
should have reverted on this occasion to the murder of which the Lorraine
family still persisted in accusing Coligny of having been the
instigator.[958]

[Sidenote: Catharine attempts to break up the conference.]

Such was, according to the solitary Huguenot who was present by Coligny's
bed, and who survived the subsequent massacre, the substance of the
conversation at this celebrated interview. But, if we may credit the
account which purports to have been given by Henry of Anjou, there was an
incident which he failed to mention. At a certain point in the
conversation Coligny asked to be allowed to speak to the king in private,
a request which Charles willingly granted, motioning Henry and Catharine
to withdraw. They accordingly retired to the middle of the room, where
they remained standing during the suspicious colloquy. Meanwhile their
apprehensions were awakened as they noticed that there were more than two
hundred gentlemen and captains of the admiral's party in this and an
adjacent room and below stairs. The sad looks of the Huguenots, their
gestures expressive of discontent, their suppressed whispers, as they
passed to and fro, before and behind the queen and her favorite son, with
less respect than the latter thought was due to them, impressed them with
the idea that they were objects of distrust. Catharine afterward admitted
to Henry that never in her life was she so glad to get out of any other
place. Her impatience soon impelled her to cut short the conference
between Charles and Coligny--much to the regret of Charles--on the pretext
that longer conversation might retard the sick man's recovery.

Scarcely had the royal party left the admiral's lodgings, wh