terror to their
descendants, and it will be a tale of shame which will cleave to your
names for centuries to come. Ah, gentlemen, the rule of a woman has
rendered you over-bold; and you have forgotten that there have been
women who have wielded a sceptre of iron. Look to England--is there no
sterner lesson to be learnt there? Or think you that Marie de Medicis
fears to emulate Elizabeth? You have mistaken both yourselves and me. My
forbearance has not hitherto grown out of fear; but the lion sometimes
disdains to struggle with the tiger, not because he misdoubts his own
strength, but because he cares not to lavish it idly. I also feel my
strength, and when the fitting moment comes, it shall be put forth. To
your war-cry I will answer with my war-cry; to your leaders I will
oppose my leaders; and when you shout Conde and Mayenne! I will answer
triumphantly Louis de France and Gaston d'Orleans! Draw the sword of
rebellion if it be too restless to remain in the scabbard; you will not
find me shrink from the flash of steel; and should you take the field I
will be there to meet you. Rally your chiefs; the array can have no
terrors for me, prepared as I am to confront you with some of the best
and the bravest in all France. Deny this if you can, you who seek to
undermine the throne, and to sacrifice the nation to your own ambitious
egotism, and I will confound you with the names of Guise, Montmorency,
Brissac, Sully, Bassompierre, Lesdiguieres, Marillac, and Ornano; these,
and many more of the great captains of the age, will peal out my
war-cry, and rally round the threatened throne of their legitimate
sovereign. My son will be in the midst of them; and mark me well,
gentlemen, the struggle shall no sooner have commenced than every
pampered adventurer who has poisoned the ear of the monarch, and steeled
his heart against his mother, shall be crushed under her heel; and
should he dare to raise his head, I will assign to him as his
armour-bearer the executioner of Paris."

Never before had the Regent evinced such an amount of energy; never
before had she so laid bare the secret workings of her soul. The
adherents of the Princes trembled as they discovered with how formidable
an enemy they should be called thenceforward to contend; while the
majority of the nobles who were faithful to the royal cause, and above
all those whose names she had so proudly quoted, uttered loud
acclamations of delight and triumph.

Bewildered by the