THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre Dumas

your liberty, sacrificed for the purpose of destroying my followers. My concern was to save my life: that was the most essential thing. We lose Navarre, indeed; but what is that compared with your being enabled to speak aloud in your room, which you dared not do when you had some one listening to you in yonder closet?”

      Deeply absorbed as she was in her thoughts, Marguerite could not refrain from smiling. The king rose and prepared to seek his own apartment, for it was some time after eleven, and every one at the Louvre was, or seemed to be, asleep.

      Henry took three steps toward the door, then suddenly stopped as if for the first time recollecting the motive of his visit to the queen.

      “By the way, madame,” said he, “had you not something to communicate to me? or did you desire to give me an opportunity of thanking you for the reprieve which your brave presence in the King’s armory brought me? In truth it was just in time, madame; I cannot deny it, you appeared like a goddess of antiquity, in the nick of time to save my life.”

      “Unfortunate man!” cried Marguerite, in a muffled voice, and seizing her husband’s arm, “do you not see that nothing is saved, neither your liberty, your crown, nor your life? Infatuated madman! Poor madman! Did you, then, see nothing in my letter but a rendezvous? Did you believe that Marguerite, indignant at your coldness, desired reparation?”

      “I confess, madame,” said Henry in astonishment, “I confess”—

      Marguerite shrugged her shoulders with an expression impossible to describe.

      At this instant a strange sound was heard, like a sharp insistent scratching at the secret door.

      Marguerite led the king toward the little door.

      “Listen,” said she.

      “The queen mother is leaving her room,” said a trembling voice outside, which Henry instantly recognized as Madame de Sauve’s.

      “Where is she going?” asked Marguerite.

      “She is coming to your majesty.”

      And then the rustling of a silk gown, growing fainter, showed that Madame de Sauve was hastening rapidly away.

      “Oho!” exclaimed Henry.

      “I was sure of this,” said Marguerite.

      “And I,” replied Henry, “feared it, and this is the proof of it.”

      And half opening his black velvet doublet, he showed the queen that he had beneath it a shirt of mail, and a long Milan poniard, which instantly glittered in his hand like a viper in the sun.

      “As if you needed weapon and cuirass here!” cried Marguerite. “Quick, quick, sire! conceal that dagger; ’tis the queen mother, indeed, but the queen mother only.”

      “Yet”—

      “Silence! — I hear her.”

      And putting her mouth close to Henry’s ear, she whispered something which the young king heard with attention mingled with astonishment. Then he hid himself behind the curtains of the bed.

      Meantime, with the quickness of a panther, Marguerite sprang to the closet, where La Mole was waiting in a fever of excitement, opened the door, found the young man, and pressing his hand in the darkness —“Silence,” said she, approaching her lips so near that he felt her warm and balmy breath; “silence!”

      Then returning to her chamber, she tore off her head-dress, cut the laces of her dress with her poniard, and sprang into bed.

      It was time — the key turned in the lock. Catharine had a key for every door in the Louvre.

      “Who is there?” cried Marguerite, as Catharine placed on guard at the door the four gentlemen by whom she was attended.

      And, as if frightened by this sudden intrusion into her chamber, Marguerite sprang out from behind the curtains of her bed in a white dressing-gown, and then recognizing Catharine, came to kiss her hand with such well-feigned surprise that the wily Florentine herself could not help being deceived by it.

      Chapter 14.

       The Second Marriage Night.

       Table of Contents

      The queen mother cast a marvellously rapid glance around her. The velvet slippers at the foot of the bed, Marguerite’s clothes scattered over the chairs, the way she rubbed her eyes as if to drive away her sleepiness, all convinced Catharine that she had awakened her daughter.

      Then she smiled as a woman does when she has succeeded in her plans, and drawing up an easy chair, she said:

      “Let us sit down, Marguerite, and talk.”

      “Madame, I am listening.”

      “It is time,” said Catharine, slowly shutting her eyes in the characteristic way of people who weigh each word or who deeply dissimulate, “it is time, my daughter, that you should know how ardently your brother and myself desire to see you happy.”

      This exordium for one who knew Catharine was alarming.

      “What can she be about to say?” thought Marguerite.

      “To be sure,” continued La Florentine, “in giving you in marriage we fulfilled one of those acts of policy frequently required by important interests of those who govern; but I must confess, my poor child, that we had no expectation that the indifference manifested by the King of Navarre for one so young, so lovely, and so fascinating as yourself would be so obstinate.”

      Marguerite arose, and folding her robe de chambre around her, courtesied with ceremonious respect to her mother.

      “I have heard to-night only,” continued Catharine, “otherwise I should have paid you an earlier visit, that your husband is far from showing you those attentions you have a right to claim, not merely as a beautiful woman, but as a princess of France.”

      Marguerite sighed, and Catharine, encouraged by this mute approval, proceeded.

      “In fact, that the King of Navarre is openly cohabiting one of my maids of honor who is scandalously smitten with him, that he scorns the love of the woman graciously given to him, is an insult to which we poor powerful ones of the earth cannot apply a remedy, and yet the meanest gentleman in our kingdom would avenge it by calling out his son-inlaw or having his son do so.”

      Marguerite dropped her head.

      “For some time, my daughter,” Catharine went on to say, “I have seen by your reddened eyes, by your bitter sallies against La Sauve, that in spite of your efforts your heart must show external signs of its bleeding wound.”

      Marguerite trembled: a slight movement had shaken the curtains; but fortunately Catharine did not notice it.

      “This wound,” said she with affectionate sweetness redoubled, “this wound, my daughter, a mother’s hand must cure. Those who with the intention of securing your happiness have brought about your marriage, and who in their anxiety about you notice that every night Henry of Navarre goes to the wrong rooms; those who cannot allow a kinglet like him to insult a woman of such beauty, of such high rank, and so worthy, by scorning your person and neglecting his chances of posterity; those who see that at the first favorable wind, this wild and insolent madcap will turn against our family and expel you from his house — I say have not they the right to secure your interests by entirely dividing them from his, so that your future may be better suited to yourself and your rank?”

      “And yet, madame,” replied Marguerite, “in spite of these observations so replete with maternal love, and filling me with joy and pride, I am bold enough to affirm to your majesty that the King of Navarre is my husband.”

      Catharine started with rage, and drawing closer to Marguerite she said:

      “He, your husband? Is it sufficient