and yellow, with caps and furred mantles, and carrying
long curved sabres like Turkish cimeters.

The officers rode at the side of the lines.

Behind this troop came a second, clothed with Oriental magnificence.
They preceded the ambassadors, who, four in number, represented in a
gorgeous manner the most mythological of the chivalrous kingdoms of the
sixteenth century.

One of the ambassadors was the Bishop of Cracow. His costume was half
ecclesiastical, half military, resplendent with gold and precious
stones.

His white horse, with long mane and tail, walked with proud step and
seemed to breathe out fire from his nostrils. No one would have supposed
that for a month the noble animal had made fifteen leagues daily over
roads which the weather had rendered almost impassable.

Beside the bishop rode the Palatine Lasco, a powerful noble, closely
related to the royal family, as rich as a king and as proud.

Behind these two chief ambassadors, who were accompanied by two other
palatines of high rank, came a number of Polish lords, whose horses in
their harness of silk, studded with gold and precious stones, excited
the applause of the people. The French horsemen, in spite of their rich
apparel, were completely eclipsed by the newcomers, whom they scornfully
called barbarians.

Up to the last moment Catharine had hoped the reception would be
postponed on account of the King's illness. But when the day came, and
she saw Charles, as pale as a corpse, put on the gorgeous royal mantle,
she realized that apparently at least she must yield to his iron will,
and began to believe that after all the safest plan for Henry of Anjou
was to accept the magnificent exile to which he was condemned. With the
exception of the few words he had uttered when he opened his eyes as his
mother came out of the closet, Charles had not spoken to Catharine
since the scene which had brought about the illness to which he had
succumbed. Every one in the Louvre knew that there had been a dreadful
altercation between mother and son, but no one knew the cause of it, and
the boldest trembled before that coldness and silence, as birds tremble
before the calm which precedes a storm.

Everything had been prepared in the Louvre, not as though there were to
be a reception, but as if some funeral ceremony were to occur. Every one
had obeyed orders in a gloomy or passive manner. It was known that
Catharine had almost trembled, and consequently every one els