nd detested by the Protestants as
the cause, however innocently, of the fatal massacre of their friends
and leaders. The memory of the martyred Coligny was ever accompanied by
a curse on Marguerite; and thus she was an outcast from all creeds and
all parties. Still, however, confident in the good faith of the
Governor of Carlat, she assumed at least a semblance of tranquillity,
and trusted that she should be enabled to remain for a time unmolested;
but it was not long ere she ascertained that the inhabitants of the
town, like those of Agen, were hostile to her interests, and that they
had even resolved to deliver her up to the French King.

Under these circumstances, she had no alternative save to become once
more a fugitive; and having, with considerable difficulty, succeeded in
making her escape beyond the walls, she began to indulge a hope that she
should yet baffle the devices of her enemy; she was soon, however, fated
to be undeceived, for she had travelled only a few leagues when she was
overtaken and captured by the Marquis de Canillac,[24] who conveyed her
to the fortress of Usson.[25] As she passed the drawbridge, Marguerite
recognised at a glance that there was no hope of evasion from this new
and impregnable prison, save through the agency of her gaoler; and she
accordingly lost no time in exerting all her blandishments to captivate
his reason. Although she had now attained her thirty-fifth year, neither
time, anxiety, hardship, nor even the baneful indulgence of her
misguided passions, had yet robbed her of her extraordinary beauty; and
it is consequently scarcely surprising that ere long the gallant soldier
to whose custody she was confided, surrendered at discretion, and laid
at her feet, not only his heart, but also the keys of her prison-house.

"Poor man!" enthusiastically exclaims Brantome, her friend and
correspondent; "what did he expect to do? Did he think to retain as a
prisoner her who, by her eyes and her lovely countenance, could hold in
her chains and bonds all the rest of the world like galley-slaves?" [26]

Certain it is, that if the brave but susceptible marquis ever
contemplated such a result, he was destined to prove the fallacy of his
hopes; for so totally was he subjugated by the fascinations of the
captive Queen, that he even abandoned to her the command of the
fortress, which thenceforward acknowledged no authority save her own.

Marguerite had scarcely resided a year at Usson when t