andered moodily
through the avenues of the gardens, communing with his own thoughts,
and nursing the bitter feelings which were rapidly sapping his
better impulses.

When he had thus convinced himself that the King's powers of endurance
had reached their extreme limit, De Luynes and his confederates on one
occasion entered his chamber in the evening, but instead of suggesting
to the young monarch, according to their usual habit, some method of
whiling away the time until he retired to rest, they approached him with
a melancholy and almost frightened deportment which at once aroused
alike his curiosity and his apprehension. "What is the meaning of your
manner, gentlemen?" asked Louis. "What has occurred?"

His attendants glanced at each other, as if trusting that some one of
their number would be bold enough to take the responsibility of a reply
upon himself; but no one spoke.

"I have asked a question, and I demand an answer," said Louis with a
threatening frown. "Do the very members of my household--those who call
themselves my friends--forget that, spite of all my trials, and all my
privations, I am still the King of France?"

"Sire," murmured the one upon whom his eye had rested as he spoke, "it
is because we are devoted heart and soul to your Majesty that you see us
in this mortal anxiety. In losing you we should lose everything; but
since it is your command that we should tell you all, it is our duty to
obey. The citizens of Paris are in a state of consternation. All your
loyal subjects fear for your life. Tears and sobs are to be heard on
every side. You are in the hands of Italians--of the countrymen and
countrywomen of Catherine de Medicis; and everything is to be
apprehended from people who know so well how to work out their ends
by poison."

"Is it come to this?" gasped the young King as he sank back upon his
chair. "Am I to die mocked as I have lived? A sovereign without a will,
a king without a throne, a monarch without a crown? The tool of needy
adventurers and intriguing women? the victim of treachery and murder?"
and the credulous boy leant his head upon his hands, and wept.

Before the chamber of Louis was closed that night upon his confidential
friends it was decided that the weapon of the assassin and the axe of
the executioner should rid him of Concini and his wife; and that his
mother should be banished from the Court.

When the King awoke on the following morning De Luynes was already at
hi