ed all he was to the duke and cardinal, terrified
by their scheme and its present failure, went over secretly to the
queen-mother, whom the ambassadors of Spain, England, the Empire, and
Poland, hastened to meet on the staircase, brought thither by Cardinal
de Tournon, who had gone to notify them as soon as he had made Queen
Catherine a sign from the courtyard at the moment when she protested
against the operation of Ambroise Pare.

"Well!" said the cardinal to the duke, "so the sons of Louis
d'Outre-mer, the heirs of Charles de Lorraine flinched and lacked
courage."

"We should have been exiled to Lorraine," replied the duke. "I declare
to you, Charles, that if the crown lay there before me I would not
stretch out my hand to pick it up. That's for my son to do."

"Will he have, as you have had, the army and Church on his side?"

"He will have something better."

"What?"

"The people!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Mary Stuart, clasping the stiffened hand of her first
husband, now dead, "there is none but me to weep for this poor boy who
loved me so!"

"How can we patch up matters with the queen-mother?" said the cardinal.

"Wait till she quarrels with the Huguenots," replied the duchess.

The conflicting interests of the house of Bourbon, of Catherine, of the
Guises, and of the Reformed party produced such confusion in the town
of Orleans that, three days after the king's death, his body, completely
forgotten in the Bailliage and put into a coffin by the menials of the
house, was taken to Saint-Denis in a covered waggon, accompanied only
by the Bishop of Senlis and two gentlemen. When the pitiable procession
reached the little town of Etampes, a servant of the Chancelier
l'Hopital fastened to the waggon this severe inscription, which history
has preserved: "Tanneguy de Chastel, where art thou? and yet thou wert a
Frenchman!"--a stern reproach, which fell with equal force on Catherine
de' Medici, Mary Stuart, and the Guises. What Frenchman does not know
that Tanneguy de Chastel spent thirty thousand crowns of the coinage of
that day (one million of our francs) at the funeral of Charles VII., the
benefactor of his house?

No sooner did the tolling of the bells announce to the town of Orleans
that Francois II. was dead, and the rumor spread that the Connetable de
Montmorency had ordered the flinging open of the gates of the town, than
Tourillon, the glover, rushed up into the garret of his house and went
to a secret hidi