Marguerite de Valois Part 48

"Aha!" said Catharine.

"Oh, heavens! yes. You thought as I did, mother, the dogs had eaten a wedding dinner off him, but it was not so. My people, my dear people, my good people, had a clever idea and have hung the admiral up at the gibbet of Montfaucon.

"_Du haut en bas Gaspard on a jete,_ _Et puis de bas en haut on l'a monte_."[3]

"Well!" said Catharine.

"Well, good mother," replied Charles IX., "I have a strong desire to see him again, dear old man, now I know he is really dead. It is very fine weather and everything seems to be blooming to-day. The air is full of life and perfume, and I feel better than I ever did. If you like, mother, we will get on horseback and go to Montfaucon."

"Willingly, my son," said Catharine, "if I had not made an appointment which I cannot defer; and beside, to pay a visit to a man of such importance as the admiral, we should invite the whole court. It will be an occasion for observers to make curious observations. We shall see who comes and who stays away."

"Faith, you are right, mother, we will put it off till to-morrow; that will be better, so send out your invitations and I will send mine; or rather let us not invite any one. We will only say we are going, and then every one will be free. Good-by, mother! I am going to play on the horn."

"You will exhaust yourself, Charles, as Ambroise Pare is always telling you, and he is right. It is too severe an exercise for you."

"Bah! bah! bah!" said Charles; "I wish I were sure nothing else would be the cause of my death. I should then bury every one here, including Harry, who will one day succeed us all, as Nostradamus prophesies."

Catharine frowned.

"My son," she said, "mistrust especially all things that appear impossible, and meanwhile take care of yourself."

"Only two or three blasts to rejoice my dogs, poor things; they are wearied to death with doing nothing. I ought to have let them loose on the Huguenots; that would have done them good!"

And Charles IX. left his mother's room, went into his armory, took down a horn, and played on it with a vigor that would have done honor to Roland himself. It was difficult to understand how so weak a frame and such pale lips could blow a blast so powerful.

Catharine, in truth, was awaiting some one as she had told her son. A moment after he had left her, one of her women came and spoke to her in a low voice. The queen smiled, rose, and saluting the persons who formed her court, followed the messenger.

Rene the Florentine, the man to whom on the eve of Saint Bartholomew the King of Navarre had given such a diplomatic reception, had just entered her oratory.

"Ah, here you are, Rene," said Catharine, "I was impatiently waiting for you."

Rene bowed.

"Did you receive the note I wrote you yesterday?"

"I had that honor."

"Did you make another trial, as I asked you to do, of the horoscope cast by Ruggieri, and agreeing so well with the prophecy of Nostradamus, which says that all my three sons shall reign? For several days past, affairs have decidedly changed, Rene, and it has occurred to me that possibly fate has become less threatening."

"Madame," replied Rene, shaking his head, "your majesty knows well that affairs do not change fate; on the contrary, fate controls affairs."

"Still, you have tried the sacrifice again, have you not?"

"Yes, madame," replied Rene; "for it is my duty to obey you in all things."

"Well--and the result?"

"Still the same, madame."

"What, the black lamb uttered its three cries?"

"Just the same as before, madame."

"The sign of three cruel deaths in my family," murmured Catharine.

"Alas!" said Rene.

"What then?"

"Then, madame, there was in its entrails that strange displacement of the liver which we had already observed in the first two--it was wrong side up!"

"A change of dynasty! Still--still--still the same!" muttered Catharine; "yet we must fight against this, Rene," she added.

Rene shook his head.

"I have told your majesty," he said, "that fate rules."

"Is that your opinion?" asked Catharine.

"Yes, madame."

"Do you remember Jeanne d'Albret's horoscope?"

"Yes, madame."

"Repeat it to me, I have quite forgotten it."

"_Vives honorata_," said Rene, "_morieris reformidata, regina amplificabere_."

"That means, I believe," said Catharine, "_Thou shalt live honored_--and she lacked common necessaries, poor thing! _Thou shalt die feared_--and we laughed at her. _Thou shalt be greater than thou hast been as a queen_--and she is dead, and sleeps in a tomb on which we have not even engraved her name."

"Madame, your majesty does not translate the _vives honorata_ rightly.

The Queen of Navarre lived honored; for all her life she enjoyed the love of her children, the respect of her partisans; respect and love all the more sincere in that she was poor."

"Yes," said Catharine, "I grant you the _vives honorata_; but _morieris reformidata_: how will you explain that?"

"Nothing more easy: _Thou shalt die feared_."

"Well--did she die feared?"

"So much so that she would not have died had not your majesty feared her. Then--_As a queen thou shalt be greater_; or, _Thou shalt be greater than thou hast been as a queen_. This is equally true, madame; for in exchange for a terrestrial crown she has doubtless, as a queen and martyr, a celestial crown; and, besides, who knows what the future may reserve for her posterity?"

Catharine was excessively superst.i.tious; she was even more alarmed at Rene's coolness than at the steadfastness of the auguries, and as in her case any sc.r.a.pe was a chance for her boldly to master the situation, she said suddenly to him, without any other transition than the working of her own thoughts:

"Are any perfumes come from Italy?"

"Yes, madame."