ours later, however, I was rudely awakened. A courier
arrived from Henry, and surprising me in the midst of my last
preparations at the Arsenal, handed me an order to attend his Majesty;
an order couched in the most absolute and peremptory terms, and lacking
all those friendly expressions which the King never failed to use when
he wrote to me. A missive so brief and so formal--and so needless, for
I was on the point of starting--had not reached me for years; and
coming at this moment when I had no reason to expect a reverse of
fortune, it had all the effect of a thunder-bolt in a clear sky. I
stood stunned, the words which I was dictating to my secretary dying on
my lips. For I knew the King too well, and had experienced his kindness
too lately to attribute the harshness of the order to chance or
forgetfulness; and assured in a moment that I stood face to face with a
grave crisis, I found myself hard put to it to hide my feelings from
those about me.

Nevertheless, I did so with all effort; and, sending for the courier
asked him with an assumption of carelessness what was the latest news
at Court. His answer, in a measure, calmed my fears, though it could
not remove them. He reported that the queen had been taken ill or so
the rumour went.

"Suddenly?" I said.

"This morning," he answered.

"The King was with her?"

"Yes, your excellency."

"Had he left her long when he sent this letter?"

"It came from her chamber, your excellency."

"But--did you understand that her Majesty was in danger?" I urged.

As to that, however, the man could not say anything; and I was left to
nurse my conjectures during the long ride to Fontainebleau, where we
arrived in the cool of the evening, the last stage through the forest
awakening memories of past pleasure that combated in vain the disorder
and apprehension which held my spirits. Dismounting in the dusk at the
door of my apartments, I found a fresh surprise awaiting me in the
shape of M. de Concini, the Italian; who advancing to meet me before my
foot was out of the stirrup, announced that he came from the King, who
desired my instant attendance in the queen's closet.

Knowing Concini to be one of those whose influence with her Majesty had
more than once tempted the King to the most violent measures against
her--from which I had with difficulty dissuaded him--I augured the
worst from the choice of such a messenger; and wounded alike in my
pride and the affection