added the Duchesse de Nevers, with commiseration.

Just at this moment the Duc d'Alencon reached his place behind the King
and the queen mother, so that his suite, in following him, were obliged
to pass before Marguerite and the Duchesse de Nevers. La Mole, as he
rode before the two princesses, raised his hat, saluted the queen, and,
bowing to his horse's neck, remained uncovered until her majesty should
honor him with a look.

But Marguerite turned her head aside disdainfully.

La Mole, no doubt, comprehended the contemptuous expression of the
queen's features, and from pale he became livid, and that he might not
fall from his horse was compelled to hold on by the mane.

"Oh, oh!" said Henriette to the queen; "look, cruel that you are!--he is
going to faint."

"Good," said the queen, with a cruel smile; "that is the only thing we
need. Where are your salts?"

Madame de Nevers was mistaken. La Mole, with an effort, recovered
himself, and sitting erect on his horse took his place in the Duc
d'Alencon's suite.

Meantime they kept on their way and at length saw the lugubrious outline
of the gibbet, erected and first used by Enguerrand de Marigny. Never
before had it been so adorned.

The ushers and guards went forward and made a wide circle around the
enclosure. As they drew near, the crows perched on the gibbet flew away
with croakings of despair.

The gibbet erected at Montfaucon generally offered behind its posts a
shelter for the dogs that gathered there attracted by frequent prey, and
for philosophic bandits who came to ponder on the sad chances of
fortune.

That day at Montfaucon there were apparently neither dogs nor bandits.
The ushers and guards had scared away the dogs together with the crows,
and the bandits had mingled with the throng so as to make some of the
lucky hits which are the more cheerful vicissitudes of their profession.

The procession moved forward; the King and Catharine arrived first, then
came the Duc d'Anjou, Duc d'Alencon, the King of Navarre, Monsieur de
Guise, and their followers, then Madame Marguerite, the Duchesse de
Nevers, and all the women who composed what was called the queen's
flying squadron; then the pages, squires, attendants, and people--in all
ten thousand persons.

From the principal gibbet hung a misshapen mass, a black corpse stained
with coagulated blood and mud, whitened by layers of dust. The carcass
was headless, and it was hung by the legs, and the popul