them as
I am."

"You think so?" said Catharine. "They certainly succeed."

"Has your majesty anything more to say to me?" asked the perfumer.

"Nothing," replied Catharine, thoughtfully; "at least I think not, only
if there is any change in the sacrifices, let me know it in time. By the
way, let us leave the lambs, and try the hens."

"Alas, madame, I fear that in changing the victim we shall not change
the presages."

"Do as I tell you."

The perfumer bowed and left the apartment.

Catharine mused for a short time, then rose and returning to her
bedchamber, where her women awaited her, announced the pilgrimage to
Montfaucon for the morrow.

The news of this pleasure party caused great excitement in the palace
and great confusion in the city: the ladies prepared their most elegant
toilets; the gentlemen, their finest arms and steeds; the tradesmen
closed their shops, and the populace killed a few straggling Huguenots,
in order to furnish company for the dead admiral.

There was a tremendous hubbub all the evening and during a good part of
the night.

La Mole had spent a miserable day, and this miserable day had followed
three or four others equally miserable. Monsieur d'Alencon, to please
his sister, had installed him in his apartments, but had not seen him
since. He felt himself like a poor deserted child, deprived of the
tender care, the soothing attention of two women, the recollection of
one of whom occupied him perpetually. He had heard of her through the
surgeon Ambroise Pare, whom she had sent to him, but what he heard from
a man of fifty who was ignorant or pretended to be ignorant of the
interest felt by La Mole in everything appertaining to Marguerite was
very fragmentary and insufficient. Gillonne, indeed, had come once, of
her own accord, be it understood, to ask after him, and the visit was to
him like a sunbeam darting into a dungeon, and La Mole had remained
dazzled by it, and had expected a second visit, and yet two days passed
and she had not appeared.

As soon, therefore, as the convalescent heard of this magnificent
reunion of the whole court for the following day he sent to ask Monsieur
d'Alencon the favor of accompanying it.

The duke did not even inquire whether La Mole was able to bear the
fatigue, but merely answered:

"Capital! Let him have one of my horses."

That was all La Mole wanted. Maitre Ambroise Pare came as usual to dress
his wounds, and La Mole explained to him the