prove an exception. His life had been a varied one; but the
spirit of intrigue and enterprise with which he was endowed had enabled
him to bid defiance to adverse fortune, and to struggle successfully
against every reverse. Patient under disappointment because strong in
his confidence of future compensation, he was less cautious in his more
prosperous moments; and in one of these he was unhappy enough to afford
a pretext for the violence of the enemies who had vowed his ruin.

Disregarding the presence of the Chevalier de Guise, or perhaps
unconscious of his propinquity, De Luz, shortly after the return of the
Duc de Bellegarde to Languedoc, was relating to a group of nobles, who
were lounging away the time in the great gallery of the Louvre while
awaiting the appearance of the King, the circumstances which preceded
the assassination of the Duc de Guise at Blois; boasting that he was
present with the Marechal de Brissac when Henri III decided upon the
murder, and had even prevented the former from intimating his danger to
the intended victim. The Chevalier, who was young, impetuous, and, like
all the members of his house, utterly careless of the consequences of
his actions, would have felt himself justified in demanding satisfaction
of M. de Luz simply for the insult offered to his brothers and himself
by his abrupt and unscrupulous abandonment of their interests, and the
affront given to their friend and ally the Duc de Bellegarde; but when
to these real or imagined injuries was superadded the fact that he had
publicly boasted of the share which he had gratuitously and wantonly
taken in the murder of his father, no wonder that the fiery young man,
disregarding alike the royal edicts against duelling and the dictates of
humanity, at once resolved to silence the vauntings of the
quasi-assassin, or to perish in the attempt.

At the moment in which he volunteered the fatal communication De Luz was
protected by the roof that covered him. It was certain death to any
individual, whatever might be his rank, who drew a hostile weapon within
the precincts of the royal palace; and De Guise was aware that by such
an act of imprudence he might forfeit all hope of vengeance. He
affected, consequently, not to have overheard the imprudent admission of
the baron, and controlled the impulse which would have led him to fell
him as he stood; but his thirst of vengeance only became the more
unquenchable by delay, and he watched the moveme