painted, was covered with blue arabesques on a gold ground, a part of which being torn down about fifty years ago was instantly purchased by a lover of antiquities.  This room, hung with tapestry, the floor being covered with a carpet, was so dark and gloomy that the torches threw scarcely any light.  The vast four-post bedstead with its silken curtains was like a tomb.  Beside her husband, close to his pillow, sat Mary Stuart, and near her the Cardinal de Lorraine.  Catherine was seated in a chair at a little distance.  The famous Jean Chapelain, the physician on duty (who was afterwards chief physician to Charles IX.) was standing before the fireplace.  The deepest silence reigned.  The young king, pale and shrunken, lay as if buried in his sheets, his pinched little face scarcely showing on the pillow.  The Duchesse de Guise, sitting on a stool, attended Queen Mary, while on the other side, near Catherine, in the recess of a window, Madame de Fiesque stood watching the gestures and looks of the queen-mother; for she knew the dangers of her position.

In the hall, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Monsieur de Cypierre, governor of the Duc d’Orleans and now appointed governor of the town, occupied one corner of the fireplace with the two Gondis.  Cardinal de Tournon, who in this crisis espoused the interests of the queen-mother on finding himself treated as an inferior by the Cardinal de Lorraine, of whom he was certainly the ecclesiastical equal, talked in a low voice to the Gondis.  The marshals de Vieilleville and Saint-Andre and the keeper of the seals, who presided at the States-general, were talking together in a whisper of the dangers to which the Guises were exposed.

The lieutenant-general of the kingdom crossed the room on his entrance, casting a rapid glance about him, and bowed to the Duc d’Orleans whom he saw there.

“Monseigneur,” he said, “this will teach you to know men.  The Catholic nobility of the kingdom have gone to pay court to a heretic prince, believing that the States-general will give the regency to the heirs of a traitor who long detained in prison your illustrious grandfather.”

Then having said these words, which were destined to plough a furrow in the heart of the young prince, he passed into the bedroom, where the king was not so much asleep as plunged in a heavy torpor.  The Duc de Guise was usually able to correct the sinister aspect of his scarred face by an affable and pleasing manner, but on this occasion, when he saw the instrument of his power breaking in his very hands, he was unable to force a smile.  The cardinal, whose civil courage was equal to his brother’s military daring, advanced a few steps to meet him.

“Robertet thinks that little Pinard is sold to the queen-mother,” he whispered, leading the duke into the hall; “they are using him to work upon the members of the States-general.”