its history in
connection with this greatest event in the history of the chateau of
Blois.

As Guise entered the council chamber he was told that the king would
see him in his closet, to reach which one had to pass through the
guard-room below. The door was barred behind him that he might not
return, when the trusty guards of the Forty-fifth, under Dalahaide,
already hidden behind the wall-tapestry, sprang upon the Balafre and
forced him back upon the closed door through which he had just passed.
Guise fell stabbed in the breast by Malines, and "lay long uncovered
until an old carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse."

Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but
listening eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and
praying that Henri--the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his
sword as he would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a
woman, and put rings in his ears--would not prejudice himself at this
time in the eyes of Rome by slaying the leader of the church party....

It was under the regime of Gaston d'Orleans that the gardens of the
Chateau de Blois came to their greatest excellence and beauty. In
1653, Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gaston's suite, published a
catalog of the fruit and flowers to be found here in these gardens,
of which he was also director. More than five hundred varieties were
included, three-quarters of which belonged to the flora of France.

Among the delicacies and novelties of the time to be found here was
the Prunier de Reine Claude, from which those delicious green plums
known to all the world to-day as "Reine Claudes" were propagated, also
another variety which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, somewhat
similar in taste, but of a deep purple color. The potato was tenderly
cared for and grown as a great novelty and delicacy long before its
introduction to general cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was
imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was grown....

In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of royalty were removed from
the chateau and destroyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the chief
artistic attribute of that part of the edifice built by him, was
decapitated, and the statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway
was overturned and broken up. Afterward the chateau became the
property of the "domaine" and was turned into a mere barracks. The
pavilion of Queen Anne became a military magazine, the Tour de
l'Observatoire, a