of
suggesting that his Majesty might benefit if he took the air.

That chance remark decided Henry's fate. His eyes quickened
responsively. "You advise well," said he. "Order my coach. I will go to
the Arsenal to see the Duc de Sully, who is indisposed."

On the stones beyond the gates, where lackeys were wont to await their
masters, sat a lean fellow of some thirty years of age, in a dingy,
clerkly attire, so repulsively evil of countenance that he had once been
arrested on no better grounds than because it was deemed impossible that
a man with such a face could be other than a villain.

Whilst the coach was being got ready, Henry re-entered the Louvre, and
startled the Queen by announcing his intention. With fearful insistence
she besought him to countermand the order, and not to leave the palace.

"I will but go there and back," he said, laughing at her fears. "I shall
have returned before you realize that I have gone." And so he went,
never to return alive.

He sat at the back of the coach, and the weather being fine all the
curtains were drawn up so that he might view the decorations of the city
against the Queen's public entry on Sunday. The Duc d'Epernon was on
his right, the Duc de Montbazon and the Marquis de la Force on his left.
Lavordin and Roquelaure were in the right boot, whilst near the left
boot, opposite to Henry, sat Mirebeau and du Plessis Liancourt. He was
attended only by a small number of gentlemen on horseback, and some
footmen.

The coach turned from the Rue St. Honore into the narrow Rue de la
Ferronerie, and there was brought to a halt by a block occasioned by
the meeting of two carts, one laden with hay, the other with wine. The
footmen went ahead with the exception of two. Of these, one advanced to
clear a way for the royal vehicle, whilst the other took the opportunity
to fasten his garter.

At that moment, gliding like a shadow between the coach and the shops,
came that shabby, hideous fellow who had been sitting on the stones
outside the Louvre an hour ago. Raising himself by deliberately standing
upon one of the spokes of the stationary wheel, he leaned over the Duc
d'Epernon, and, whipping a long, stout knife from his sleeve, stabbed
Henry in the breast. The King, who was in the act of reading a letter,
cried out, and threw up his arms in an instinctive warding movement,
thereby exposing his heart. The assassin stabbed again, and this time
the blade went deep.

With a little g