It is probable that the perfect freedom of action for which she was indebted to the indifference of her young bridegroom had great influence in prompting this reply, and that the crown which had so recently been placed upon her brow had at the same time flattered her ambition; while the frightful carnage of which she had just been a witness might well cause her to shrink from the probable repetition of so hideous a catastrophe.  Be her motives what they might, however, neither threats nor entreaties could shake the resolution of the Princess; and she was supported in her opposition by her favourite brother, the Duc d’Alencon, who had secretly attached himself to the cause of the Protestant Princes.

This was another source of uneasiness to the Queen-mother, who apprehended, from the pertinacity with which Marguerite clung to her husband, that she would exert all her influence to effect an understanding between the two brothers-in-law which could not fail to prove fatal to the interests of the Duc d’Anjou, who, in the event of the decease of Charles IX, was the rightful heir to the throne.  Nor was that decease a mere matter of idle speculation, for the health of the King, always feeble and uncertain, had failed more than ever since the fatal night of the 24th of August; and he had even confessed to Ambroise Pare,[9] his body-surgeon, that his dreams were haunted by the spectres of his victims, and that he consequently shrank from the sleep which was so essential to his existence.  The Duc d’Anjou meanwhile was absent at the siege of Rochelle, while his brother, d’Alencon, was about the person of the dying monarch, and had made himself eminently popular among the citizens of Paris.  The crisis was an alarming one; but it was still destined to appear even more perilous, for, to the consternation of Catherine, intelligence at this period reached the Court that the Polish nation had elected the Duc d’Anjou as their King, and that their ambassadors were about to visit France in order to tender him the crown.  In vain did she represent to Charles the impolicy of suffering a warlike prince like Henri d’Anjou to abandon his country for a foreign throne, and urge him to replace the elder by the younger brother, alleging that so long as the Polish people could see a prince of the blood-royal of France at the head of their nation, they would care little whether he were called Henry or Francis; the King refused to countenance such a substitution.  He had long been jealous of the military renown of the Duc d’Anjou; while he was also perfectly aware of the anxiety with which both the Queen-mother and the Prince himself looked forward to his own death, in order that Henry might succeed him; and he consequently issued a command that the sovereign-elect should immediately repair to Paris to receive at the hands of the foreign delegates the crown which they were about to offer to him.