ents, that my sister was
not among the group of women collected there; and I went up into an
'entresol', where I supposed she had taken refuge, to induce her to come
down, fancying it safer that we should not be separated. I did not find
her in the room in question; I saw there only our two femmes de chambre
and one of the Queen's two heyducs, a man of great height and military
aspect. I saw that he was pale, and sitting on a bed. I cried out to
him, "Fly! the footmen and our people are already safe."--"I cannot," said
the man to me; "I am dying of fear." As he spoke I heard a number of men
rushing hastily up the staircase; they threw themselves upon him, and I
saw him assassinated.

I ran towards the staircase, followed by our women. The murderers left
the heyduc to come to me. The women threw themselves at their feet, and
held their sabres. The narrowness of the staircase impeded the assassins;
but I had already felt a horrid hand thrust into my back to seize me by my
clothes, when some one called out from the bottom of the staircase, "What
are you doing above there? We don't kill women." I was on my knees; my
executioner quitted his hold of me, and said, "Get up, you jade; the
nation pardons you."

The brutality of these words did not prevent my suddenly experiencing an
indescribable feeling which partook almost equally of the love of life and
the idea that I was going to see my son, and all that was dear to me,
again. A moment before I had thought less of death than of the pain which
the steel, suspended over my head, would occasion me. Death is seldom
seen so close without striking his blow. I heard every syllable uttered
by the assassins, just as if I had been calm.

Five or six men seized me and my companions, and, having made us get up on
benches placed before the windows, ordered us to call out, "The nation for
ever!"

I passed over several corpses; I recognised that of the old Vicomte de
Broves, to whom the Queen had sent me at the beginning of the night to
desire him and another old man in her name to go home. These brave men
desired I would tell her Majesty that they had but too strictly obeyed the
King's orders in all circumstances under which they ought to have exposed
their own lives in order to preserve his; and that for this once they
would not obey, though they would cherish the recollection of the Queen's
goodness.

Near the grille, on the side next the bridge, the men who conducted