of the other sons of France--"

"Great God!" exclaimed Lecamus.

"Don't cry out in that way,--it is like a burgher who knows nothing of
the court,--but go at once to Ambroise and find out from him what he
intends to do to save the king's life. If there is anything decided on,
come back to me at once, and tell me the treatment in which he has such
faith."

"But--" said Lecamus.

"Obey blindly, my dear friend; otherwise you will get your mind
bewildered."

"He is right," thought the furrier. "I had better not know more"; and he
went at once in search of the king's surgeon, who lived at a hostelry in
the place du Martroi.

Catherine de' Medici was at this moment in a political extremity very
much like that in which poor Christophe had seen her at Blois. Though
she had been in a way trained by the struggle, though she had exercised
her lofty intellect by the lessons of that first defeat, her present
situation, while nearly the same, had become more critical, more
perilous than it was at Amboise. Events, like the woman herself, had
magnified. Though she seemed to be in full accordance with the Guises,
Catherine held in her hand the threads of a wisely planned conspiracy
against her terrible associates, and was only awaiting a propitious
moment to throw off the mask. The cardinal had just obtained the
positive certainty that Catherine was deceiving him. Her subtle Italian
spirit felt that the Younger branch was the best hindrance she could
offer to the ambition of the duke and the cardinal; and (in spite of the
advice of the two Gondis, who urged her to let the Guises wreak their
vengeance on the Bourbons) she defeated the scheme concocted by them
with Spain to seize the province of Bearn, by warning Jeanne d'Albret,
queen of Navarre, of that threatened danger. As this state secret was
known only to them and to the queen-mother, the Guises knew of course
who had betrayed it, and resolved to send her back to Florence. But in
order to make themselves perfectly sure of what they called her treason
against the State (the State being the house of Lorraine), the duke and
cardinal confided to her their intention of getting rid of the king of
Navarre. The precautions instantly taken by Antoine proved conclusively
to the two brothers that the secrets known only to them and the
queen-mother had been divulged by the latter. The cardinal instantly
taxed her with treachery, in presence of Francois II.,--threatening her
with an edi