r, now made common cause with the adherents of the
queen-mother. A coalition between these opposing interests, attacked by
a common enemy, formed itself silently in the States-general, where it
soon became a question of appointing Catherine as regent in case the
king should die. Catherine, whose faith in astrology was much greater
than her faith in the Church, now dared all against her oppressors,
seeing that her son was ill and apparently dying at the expiration of
the time assigned to his life by the famous sorceress, whom Nostradamus
had brought to her at the chateau of Chaumont.

XI. AMBROISE PARE

Some days before the terrible end of the reign of Francois II., the king
insisted on sailing down the Loire, wishing not to be in the town of
Orleans on the day when the Prince de Conde was executed. Having yielded
the head of the prince to the Cardinal de Lorraine, he was equally
in dread of a rebellion among the townspeople and of the prayers and
supplications of the Princesse de Conde. At the moment of embarkation,
one of the cold winds which sweep along the Loire at the beginning of
winter gave him so sharp an ear-ache that he was obliged to return to
his apartments; there he took to his bed, not leaving it again until
he died. In contradiction of the doctors, who, with the exception of
Chapelain, were his enemies, Ambroise Pare insisted that an abscess was
formed in the king's head, and that unless an issue were given to it,
the danger of death would increase daily. Notwithstanding the lateness
of the hour, and the curfew law, which was sternly enforced in Orleans,
at this time practically in a state of siege, Pare's lamp shone from his
window, and he was deep in study, when Lecamus called to him from below.
Recognizing the voice of his old friend, Pare ordered that he should be
admitted.

"You take no rest, Ambroise; while saving the lives of others you
are wasting your own," said the furrier as he entered, looking at the
surgeon, who sat, with opened books and scattered instruments, before
the head of a dead man, lately buried and now disinterred, in which he
had cut an opening.

"It is a matter of saving the king's life."

"Are you sure of doing it, Ambroise?" cried the old man, trembling.

"As sure as I am of my own existence. The king, my old friend, has a
morbid ulcer pressing on his brain, which will presently suffice it if
no vent is given to it, and the danger is imminent. But by boring the
skul