Her look had destroyed all the baser material in the admiral’s heart:  the pure metal was alone left, and his heart seemed rent asunder, like a crucible which had been riven by the fusion of metal.

“Yes, yes,” he repeated, in a still lower voice, and continuing to fix upon her a gaze from which the fire of his fierce anger had disappeared—­“yes, yes, Henri must have loved you.  Oh! madame, for pity’s sake, on my knees I implore you to love my brother.”

Diana remained cold and silent.

“Do not reduce a family to despair, do not sacrifice the future prospects of our race; be not the cause of the death of one from despair, of the others from regret.”

Diana, still silent, continued to look sorrowfully on the suppliant bending before her.

“Oh!” exclaimed Joyeuse, madly pressing his hand against his heart, “have mercy on my brother, have mercy on me!”

He sprung to his feet like a man bereft of his senses, unfastened, or rather tore open the door of the room where they had been conversing, and, bewildered and almost beside himself, fled from the house toward his attendants, who were awaiting him at the corner of the Rue d’Enfer.

CHAPTER XC.

HIS HIGHNESS MONSEIGNEUR LE DUC DE GUISE.

On Sunday the 10th of June, toward eleven o’clock in the day, the whole court were assembled in the apartment leading to the cabinet in which, since his meeting with Diana de Meridor, the Duc d’Anjou was dying by slow but sure degrees.  Neither the science of the physicians, nor his mother’s despair, nor the prayers which the king had desired to be offered up, had been successful in averting the fatal termination.  Miron, on the morning of this same 10th of June, assured the king that all chance of recovery was hopeless, and that Francois d’Anjou would not outlive the day.  The king pretended to display extreme grief, and turning toward those who were present, said, “This will fill my enemies full of hope.”

To which remark the queen-mother replied:  “Our destiny is in the hands of Heaven, my son.”

Whereupon Chicot, who was standing humbly and reverently near Henri III., added in a low voice: 

“Let us help Heaven when we can, sire.”

Nevertheless, the dying man, toward half-past eleven, lost both color and sight; his mouth, which, up to that moment, had remained open, became closed; the flow of blood which for several days past had terrified all who were near him, as the bloody sweat of Charles IX. had similarly done at an earlier period, had suddenly ceased, and hands and feet became icy cold.  Henri was sitting beside the head of the couch whereon his brother was extended.  Catherine was standing in the recess in which the bed was placed, holding her dying son’s hand in hers.