of the building.  All looked wild, and sad, and strange; and not one kindly accent fell upon the ear of the unhappy captive as she was hurried onward.  A few harsh words were uttered in a tone of authority:  she was lifted into the conveyance which had been prepared for her:  the cavalcade slowly traversed the enclosure; and then as the iron gates of the palace were passed, the horses were lashed into a gallop; and in less than an hour the life-long companion of Marie de Medicis, husbandless, childless, and friendless, was an occupant of the gloomy prison-chamber which had recently been vacated by the Prince de Conde.

The noise created by the entrance of the new prisoner, the clashing of arms, the grating of the heavy portcullis, as it groaned and strained in its ascent, the dull fall of the drawbridge, the voices of men, and the rattling of wheels, awakened the Prince; who, with the natural weariness of a captive, had already retired to rest.  Summoning an attendant he demanded to know the cause of the disturbance.

“It is M. de Vitry, Monseigneur,” was the reply; “who has just transferred the Marechale d’Ancre to the safe keeping of the governor.”

“Good!” said the Prince, as he once more settled himself to sleep; “I have now one enemy the less.” [292]

This rapid succession of misfortunes produced an extraordinary effect upon the sensitive organization of Leonora Galigai.  As we have already hinted, she had for a considerable period suffered under mental hallucination; and the disease had latterly fastened so tenaciously upon her system that she had even shunned the presence of the Queen, believing that every eye which rested on her produced some baneful result; while her very attendants were dismissed from her presence when they had terminated their duties, and she thus remained hour after hour in solitude, brooding over the sickly fancies of her disordered brain.  The sight of her husband’s murderer had, however, instantly and for ever restored the healthful tone of her mind.  She did not weep, for she had already exhausted all her tears; she asked no mercy, for she was aware that, whatever might be her fate, she was alike prejudged and pre-condemned; but she resigned herself passively into the hands of her persecutors, with a Spartan firmness which she maintained to the last hour of her existence.

Who shall venture to follow her to her prison-cell, and to trace the tide of back-flowing thought which rolled like a receding wave from the present to the past?  Now, indeed, she left little behind her to regret.  From the husband to whom she had once been devoted with a love which blinded her to all his errors and to all his egotism, she had, during the last two years, been almost utterly estranged; her first-born and idolized daughter was in her grave; the royal friend and almost relative, to whom she had clung from her youth up, had refused even a tear to her sufferings, or a shelter to her peril; her hoarded wealth was in the hands of her enemies; and of all that she once boasted there remained only her son.  And what might be his fate?