far this Florentine dissimulation would
go.

Catharine hypocritically dropped her eyes.

"I have had him arrested and taken to Vincennes for his escapade,"
continued the King; "is he more guilty than I suspected, then?"

"Do you feel the fever that consumes you?" asked Catharine.

"Yes, certainly, madame," said Charles, frowning.

"Do you feel the fire that burns you internally?"

"Yes, madame," replied Charles, his brow darkening more and more.

"And the sharp pains in your head, which shoot from your eyes to your
brain like so many arrows?"

"Yes, madame. I feel all that. You describe my trouble perfectly!"

"Well! the explanation is very simple," said the Florentine. "See."

And she drew from under her cloak an object which she gave to the King.

It was a figure of yellow wax, about six inches high, clothed in a robe
covered with golden stars also of wax, like the figure; and over this a
royal mantle of the same material.

"Well," asked Charles, "what is this little statue?"

"See what it has on its head," said Catharine.

"A crown," replied Charles.

"And in the heart?"

"A needle."

"Well, sire, do you recognize yourself?"

"Myself?"

"Yes, you, with your crown and mantle?"

"Who made this figure?" asked Charles, whom this farce was beginning to
weary; "the King of Navarre, no doubt?"

"No, sire."

"No? then I do not understand you."

"I say _no_," replied Catharine, "because you asked the question
literally. I should have said _yes_ had you put it differently."

Charles made no answer. He was striving to penetrate all the thoughts of
that shadowy mind, which constantly closed before him just as he thought
himself ready to read it.

"Sire," continued Catharine, "this statue was found by the
Attorney-General Laguesle, in the apartment of the man who on the day
you last went hawking led a horse for the King of Navarre."

"Monsieur de la Mole?"

"Yes, and, if you please, look again at the needle in the heart, and see
what letter is written on the label attached to it."

"I see an 'M,'" said Charles.

"That means _mort_, death; it is the magic formula, sire. The maker thus
wrote his vow on the very wound he gave. Had he wished to make a
pretence at killing, as did the Duc de Bretagne for King Charles VI., he
would have driven the needle into the head and put an 'F' instead of an
'M.'"

"So," said Charles IX., "according to your idea, the person who seeks to
end my days is Monsie