eeing the frown upon
his brow, took his arm and led him away into the recess of the window,
where she cajoled him with sweet speeches in a low voice, no doubt like
those she had used that morning in their chamber. The two Guises read
the documents given up to them by Catherine. Finding that they contained
information which their spies, and Monsieur Braguelonne, the lieutenant
of the Chatelet, had not obtained, they were inclined to believe in the
sincerity of Catherine de' Medici. Robertet came and received certain
secret orders relative to Christophe. The youthful instrument of the
leaders of the Reformation was then led away by four soldiers of the
Scottish guard, who took him down the stairs and delivered him to
Monsieur de Montresor, provost of the chateau. That terrible personage
himself, accompanied by six of his men, conducted Christophe to the
prison in the vaulted cellar of the tower, now in ruins, which the
concierge of the chateau de Blois shows you with the information that
these were the dungeons.

After such an event the Council could be only a formality. The king, the
young queen, the Grand-master, and the cardinal returned to it, taking
with them the vanquished Catherine, who said no word except to approve
the measures proposed by the Guises. In spite of a slight opposition
from the Chancelier Olivier (the only person present who said one word
that expressed the independence to which his office bound him), the
Duc de Guise was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Robertet
brought the required documents, showing a devotion which might be called
collusion. The king, giving his arm to his mother, recrossed the _salle
des gardes_, announcing to the court as he passed along that on the
following day he should leave Blois for the chateau of Amboise. The
latter residence had been abandoned since the time when Charles VIII.
accidentally killed himself by striking his head against the casing of
a door on which he had ordered carvings, supposing that he could enter
without stooping below the scaffolding. Catherine, to mask the plans of
the Guises, remarked aloud that they intended to complete the chateau
of Amboise for the Crown at the same time that her own chateau of
Chemonceaux was finished. But no one was the dupe of that pretext, and
all present awaited great events.

After spending about two hours endeavoring to see where he was in the
obscurity of the dungeon, Christophe ended by discovering that t