"for what o'clock should I make ready to
die?"

"For eight o'clock to-morrow, madam," answered the Earl of Shrewsbury,
stammering.

"It is well," said Mary; "but have you not some reply to make me, from
my sister Elizabeth, relative to a letter which I wrote to her about a
month ago?"

"And of what did this letter treat, if it please you, madam?" asked the
Earl of Kent.

"Of my burial and my funeral ceremony, my lord: I asked to be interred
in France, in the cathedral church of Rheims, near the late queen my
mother."

"That may not be, madam," replied the Earl of Kent; "but do not trouble
yourself as to all these details: the queen, my august mistress, will
provide for them as is suitable. Has your grace anything else to ask
us?"

"I would also like to know," said Mary, "if my servants will be allowed
to return, each to his own country, with the little that I can give him;
which will hardly be enough, in any case, for the long service they have
done me, and the long imprisonment they have borne on my account."

"We have no instructions on that head, madam," the Earl of Kent said,
"but we think that an order will be given for this as for the other
things, in accordance with your wishes. Is this all that your Grace has
to say to us?"

"Yes, my lord," replied the queen, bowing a second time, "and now you
may withdraw."

"One moment, my lords, in Heaven's name, one moment!" cried the old
physician, coming forward and throwing himself on his knees before the
two earls.

"What do you want?" asked Lord Shrewsbury.

"To point out to you, my lords," replied the aged Bourgoin, weeping,
"that you have granted the queen but a very short time for such an
important matter as this of her life. Reflect, my lords, what rank and
degree she whom you have condemned has held among the princes of this
earth, and consider if it is well and seemly to treat her as an ordinary
condemned person of middling estate. And if not for the sake of this
noble queen, my lords, do this for the sake of us her poor servants,
who, having had the honour of living near her so long, cannot thus part
from her so quickly and without preparation. Besides, my lords, think of
it, a woman of her state and position ought to have some time in which
to set in order her last affairs. And what will become of her, and of
us, if before dying, our mistress has not time to regulate her jointure
and her accounts and to put in order her papers and her title-deeds