attracted attention at the battle of Arnay-le-Duc and was the recipient
of numberless compliments, was the dearly beloved pupil of Coligny and
the hero of the day. Three months before--that is to say, when his
mother was still living--he was called the Prince de Bearn, now he was
called the King of Navarre, afterwards he was known as Henry IV.

From time to time a swift and gloomy cloud passed over his brow;
unquestionably it was at the thought that scarce had two months elapsed
since his mother's death, and he, less than any one, doubted that she
had been poisoned. But the cloud was transitory, and disappeared like a
fleeting shadow, for they who spoke to him, they who congratulated him,
they who elbowed him, were the very ones who had assassinated the brave
Jeanne d'Albret.

Some paces distant from the King of Navarre, almost as pensive, almost
as gloomy as the king pretended to be joyous and open-hearted, was the
young Duc de Guise, conversing with Teligny. More fortunate than the
Bearnais, at two-and-twenty he had almost attained the reputation of his
father, Francois, the great Duc de Guise. He was an elegant gentleman,
very tall, with a noble and haughty look, and gifted with that natural
majesty which caused it to be said that in comparison with him other
princes seemed to belong to the people. Young as he was, the Catholics
looked up to him as the chief of their party, as the Huguenots saw
theirs in Henry of Navarre, whose portrait we have just drawn. At first
he had borne the title of Prince de Joinville, and at the siege of
Orleans had fought his first battle under his father, who died in his
arms, denouncing Admiral Coligny as his assassin. The young duke then,
like Hannibal, took a solemn oath to avenge his father's death on the
admiral and his family, and to pursue the foes to his religion without
truce or respite, promising God to be his destroying angel on earth
until the last heretic should be exterminated. So with deep astonishment
the people saw this prince, usually so faithful to his word, offering
his hand to those whom he had sworn to hold as his eternal enemies, and
talking familiarly with the son-in-law of the man whose death he had
promised to his dying father.

But as we have said, this was an evening of astonishments.

Indeed, an observer privileged to be present at this festival, endowed
with the knowledge of the future which is fortunately hidden from men,
and with that power of reading