nt when they were
raising from the floor the Duc d'Anjou's body, which his
valet-de-chambre, having entered without authority, in order to announce
the king's arrival, had just perceived lying on the carpet of the
bedroom. The prince was cold, stiff, and perfectly inanimate, and it was
only by a strange movement of the eyelids and a nervous contraction of
the lips that it could be observed he was still alive. The king paused
at the threshold of the door, and those behind him followed his example.

[Illustration: THE PRINCE WAS COLD, STIFF, AND PERFECTLY INANIMATE.]

"This is an ugly omen," he murmured.

"Do not enter, my son, I implore you," said Catherine to him.

"Poor Francois!" said Henri, delighted at being sent away, and thus
being spared the spectacle of this agonizing scene.

The crowd, too, followed the king as he withdrew.

"Strange! strange!" murmured Catherine, kneeling down by the side of the
prince, or rather of the corpse, no one being in the room, with her but
the two old servants; and while the messengers were dispatched in every
quarter of the town to find the prince's physician, and while a courier
galloped off to Paris in order to hasten the attendance of the king's
physicians, who had remained at Meaux with the queen, Catherine, with
less knowledge, very probably, but not with less perspicacity than Miron
himself could possibly have shown, examined the diagnostics of that
singular malady which had struck down her son so suddenly.

Her experience was by no means indifferent; in the first place,
therefore, she interrogated calmly, and without confusing them, the two
attendants, who were tearing their hair and wringing their hands in the
wildest despair.

Both of them replied that the prince had returned on the previous
evening about nightfall, after having been disturbed at an inconvenient
hour by Monsieur du Bouchage, who had arrived with a message from the
king.

They then added that when the audience had terminated, which had been
held in the chateau itself, the prince had ordered supper to be
prepared, and had desired that no one should venture to approach the
pavilion without being summoned; and lastly, that he had given the
strictest injunctions not to be awakened in the morning, and that no one
should enter without a positive summons.

"He probably expected a visit from a lady?" observed the queen-mother,
inquiringly.

"We think so, madame," replied the valet respectfully, "but we