exchanging sad reflections, were obliged to
return as they had come, since nothing that went on in the privacy of the
family found its way outside--the castle was plunged in complete
darkness, the drawbridge was raised as usual, and the guards were at
their post.

Yet if our readers care to be present at the death of the nephew of Saint
Louis and the grandson of Charles of Anjou, we may conduct them into the
chamber of the dying man. An alabaster lamp suspended from the ceiling
serves to light the vast and sombre room, with walls draped in black
velvet sewn with golden fleur-de-lys. Near the wall which faces the two
entrance doors that at this moment are both shut close, there stands
beneath a brocaded canopy an ebony bed, supported on four twisted columns
carved with symbolic figures. The king, after a struggle with a violent
paroxysm, has fallen swooning in the arms of his confessor and his
doctor, who each hold one of his dying hands, feeling his pulse anxiously
and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the foot of the bed stands a
woman about fifty years of age, her hands clasped, her eyes raised to
heaven, in an attitude of resigned grief: this woman is the queen, No
tears dim her eyes: her sunken cheek has that waxen yellow tinge that one
sees on the bodies of saints preserved by miracle. In her look is that
mingling of calm and suffering that points to a soul at once tried by
sorrow and imbued with religion. After the lapse of an hour, while no
movement had disturbed the profound silence which reigned about the bed
of death, the king trembled slightly; opened his eyes, and endeavoured
feebly to raise his head. They thanking the physician and priest with a
smile, who had both hastened to arrange his pillows, he begged the queen
to come near, and told her in a low voice that he would speak with her a
moment alone. The doctor and confessor retired, deeply bowing, and the
king followed them with his eyes up to the moment when one of the doors
closed behind them. He passed his hand across his brow, as though
seeking to collect his thoughts, and rallying all his forces for the
supreme effort, pronounced these words:

"What I must say to you, Sancha, has no concern with those two good
persons who were here a moment ago: their task is ended. One has done
all for my body that human science could teach him, and all that has come
of it is that my death is yet a little deferred; the other has now
absolved me of all