“Madame, I will follow you to your cabinet; we must act—­”

“Act!” cried Catherine; “let our enemies alone; let them act; take them red-handed, and law and justice will deliver you from their assaults.  For God’s sake, monsieur, show them good-will.”

The queen withdrew; the king remained alone for a few moments, for he was utterly overwhelmed.

“On which side is the trap?” thought he.  “Which of the two—­she or they—­deceive me?  What is my best policy? Deus, discerne causam meam!” he muttered with tears in his eyes.  “Life is a burden to me!  I prefer death, natural or violent, to these perpetual torments!” he cried presently, bringing down his hammer upon the anvil with such force that the vaults of the palace trembled.

“My God!” he said, as he went outside and looked up at the sky, “thou for whose holy religion I struggle, give me the light of thy countenance that I may penetrate the secrets of my mother’s heart while I question the Ruggieri.”

III

MARIE TOUCHET

The little house of Madame de Belleville, where Charles IX. had deposited his prisoners, was the last but one in the rue de l’Autruche on the side of the rue Saint-Honore.  The street gate, flanked by two little brick pavilions, seemed very simple in those days, when gates and their accessories were so elaborately treated.  It had two pilasters of stone cut in facets, and the coping represented a reclining woman holding a cornucopia.  The gate itself, closed by enormous locks, had a wicket through which to examine those who asked admittance.  In each pavilion lived a porter; for the king’s extremely capricious pleasure required a porter by day and by night.  The house had a little courtyard, paved like those of Venice.  At this period, before carriages were invented, ladies went about on horseback, or in litters, so that courtyards could be made magnificent without fear of injury from horses or carriages.  This fact is always to be remembered as an explanation of the narrowness of streets, the small size of courtyards, and certain other details of the private dwellings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The house, of one story only above the ground-floor, was capped by a sculptured frieze, above which rose a roof with four sides, the peak being flattened to form a platform.  Dormer windows were cut in this roof, with casings and pediments which the chisel of some great artist had covered with arabesques and dentils; each of the three windows on the main floor were equally beautiful in stone embroidery, which the brick of the walls showed off to great advantage.  On the ground-floor, a double portico, very delicately decorated, led to the entrance door, which was covered with bosses cut with facets in the Venetian manner, —­a style of decoration which was further carried on round the windows placed to right and left of the door.