ace, ingenious
as it always is, had replaced the head with a bunch of straw, to which
was fastened a mask; and in the mouth of this mask some wag, knowing the
admiral's habit, had introduced a toothpick.

At once appalling and singular was the spectacle of all these elegant
lords and handsome ladies like a procession painted by Goya, riding
along in the midst of those blackened carcasses and gibbets, with their
long lean arms.

The noisier the exultation of the spectators, the more strikingly it
contrasted with the melancholy silence and cold insensibility of those
corpses--objects of ridicule which made even the jesters shudder.

Many could scarcely endure this horrible spectacle, and by his pallor
might be distinguished, in the centre of collected Huguenots, Henry,
who, great as was his power of self-control and the degree of
dissimulation conferred on him by Heaven, could no longer bear it.

He made as his excuse the strong stench which emanated from all those
human remains, and going to Charles, who, with Catharine, had stopped in
front of the admiral's dead body, he said:

"Sire, does not your Majesty find that this poor carcass smells so
strong that it is impossible to remain near it any longer?"

"Do you find it so, Harry?" inquired the King, his eyes sparkling with
ferocious joy.

"Yes, sire."

"Well, then, I am not of your opinion; a dead enemy's corpse always
smells sweet."

"Faith, sire," said Tavannes, "since your Majesty knew that we were
going to make a little call on the admiral, you should have invited
Pierre Ronsard, your teacher of poetry; he would have extemporized an
epitaph for the old Gaspard."

"There is no need of him for that," said Charles IX., after an instant's
thought:

_"Ci-git,--mais c'est mal entendu,_
_Pour lui le mot est trop honnete,--_
_Ici l'amiral est pendu_
_Par les pieds, a faute de tete."_[4]

"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Catholic gentlemen in unison, while the
collected Huguenots scowled and kept silent, and Henry, as he was
talking with Marguerite and Madame de Nevers, pretended not to have
heard.

"Come, come, sir!" said Catharine, who, in spite of the perfumes with
which she was covered, began to be made ill by the odor. "Come, however
agreeable company may be, it must be left at last; let us therefore say
good-by to the admiral, and return to Paris."

She nodded ironically as when one takes leave of a friend, and, taking
the head of the