she replied. "What do you
mean, Henry?"

"I mean that the King is more than ever taken with the accursed
Huguenots; and if we await his leave to execute the great enterprise, we
shall wait a very long time, and perhaps forever."

"Tell me what has happened," said Catharine, still preserving the
tranquillity of countenance habitual to her, yet to which, when occasion
served, she could give such different expressions.

"Why, just now, for the twentieth time, I asked his Majesty whether he
would still permit all those bravadoes which the gentlemen of the
reformed religion indulge in, since their admiral was wounded."

"And what did my son reply?" asked Catharine.

"He replied, 'Monsieur le Duc, you must necessarily be suspected by the
people as the author of the attempted assassination of my second father,
the admiral; defend yourself from the imputation as best you may. As to
me, I will defend myself properly, if I am insulted;' and then he turned
away to feed his dogs."

"And you made no attempt to retain him?"

"Certainly I did; but he replied to me, in that tone which you so well
know, and looking at me with the gaze peculiar to him, 'Monsieur le Duc,
my dogs are hungry; and they are not men, whom I can keep waiting.'
Whereupon I came straight to you."

"And you have done right," said the queen mother.

"But what is now to be done?"

"Try a last effort."

"And who will try it?"

"I will! Is the King alone?"

"No; M. de Tavannes is with him."

"Await me here; or, rather, follow me at a distance."

Catharine instantly rose and went to the chamber, where on Turkey
carpets and velvet cushions were the King's favorite greyhounds. On
perches ranged along the wall were two or three valuable falcons and a
small shrike, with which Charles IX. amused himself in bringing down the
little birds in the garden of the Louvre, and that of the Tuileries,
which they had just begun building.

On her way the queen mother put on a pale and anguished expression,
while down her cheeks rolled a last or rather a first tear.

She noiselessly approached Charles IX. as he was giving his dogs
fragments of cakes cut into equal portions.

"My son," said the queen, with a trembling in her voice so cleverly
affected that the King started.

"What is it, madame?" said Charles, turning round suddenly.

"My son," replied Catharine, "I would ask your leave to retire to one of
your chateaux, no matter which, so that it be as distant