Part 25 (1/2)
The young Queen and the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise stood between the surgeon and the doctors and the other persons present. The chief physician held the King's head, and Ambroise made the injection into the ear. The two Princes of Lorraine were watchful; Robertet and Monsieur de Maille stood motionless.
At a sign from Catherine, Madame de Fieschi left the room unnoticed. At the same instant l'Hopital boldly threw open the door of the King's bedroom.
”I have arrived in the nick of time,” exclaimed a man, whose hasty steps rang through the hall, and who, in another minute, was at the door of the King's room. ”What, gentlemen! You thought to cut off my fine nephew, the Prince de Conde's head?--You have roused the lion from his lair, and here he is!” added the Connetable de Montmorency.--”Ambroise, you are not to stir up my King's brains with your instruments! The Kings of France do not allow themselves to be knocked about in that way unless by their enemies'
sword in fair fight! The first Prince of the Blood, Antoine de Bourbon, the Prince de Conde, the Queen-mother, and the Chancellor are all opposed to the operation.”
To Catherine's great satisfaction, the King of Navarre and the Prince de Conde both made their appearance.
”What is the meaning of this?” said the Duc de Guise, laying his hand on his poniard.
”As Lord High Constable, I have dismissed all the sentinels from their posts. Blood and thunder! we are not in an enemy's country, I suppose. The King our Master is surrounded by his subjects, and the States-General of the realm may deliberate in perfect liberty. I have just come from the a.s.sembly, gentlemen; I laid before it the protest of my nephew de Conde, who has been rescued by three hundred gentlemen. You meant to let the royal blood, and to decimate the n.o.bility of France. Henceforth I shall not trust anything you propose, Messieurs de Lorraine. And if you give the order for the King's head to be opened, by this sword, which saved France from Charles V., I say it shall not be done----!”
”All the more so,” said Ambroise Pare, ”because it is too late, suffusion has begun.”
”Your reign is over, gentlemen,” said Catherine to the two Guises, seeing from Pare's manner that there was now no hope.
”You, madame, have killed your son!” said Mary Stuart, springing like a lioness from the bed to the window, and seizing the Italian Queen by the arm with a vehement clutch.
”My dear,” replied Catherine de' Medici, with a keen, cold look that expressed the hatred she had suppressed for six months past, ”you, to whose violent pa.s.sion this death is due, will now go to reign over your own Scotland--and you will go to-morrow. I am now Regent in fact as well as in name.”
The three physicians had made a sign to the Queen-mother.
”Gentlemen,” she went on, addressing the Guises, ”it is an understood thing between Monsieur de Bourbon--whom I hereby appoint Lieutenant-General of the kingdom--and myself that the conduct of affairs is our business.--Come, Monsieur le Chancelier.”
”The King is dead!” said the Grand Master, obliged to carry out the functions of his office.
”G.o.d save King Charles IX.!” cried the gentleman who had come with the King of Navarre, the Prince de Conde, and the Constable.
The ceremonies performed when a King of France dies were carried out in solitude. When the king-at-arms called out three times in the great hall, ”The King is dead!” after the official announcement by the Duc de Guise, there were but a few persons present to answer--”G.o.d save the King!”
The Queen-mother, to whom the Countess Fieschi brought the Duc d'Orleans, now Charles IX., left the room leading the boy by the hand, and followed by the whole Court. Only the two Guises, the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise, Mary Stuart, and Dayelle remained in the room where Francis II. had breathed his last, with two guards at the door, the Grand Master's pages and the Cardinal's, and their two private secretaries.
”Vive la France!” shouted some of the Reformers, a first cry of opposition.
Robertet, who owed everything to the Duke and the Cardinal, terrified by their schemes and their abortive attempts, secretly attached himself to the Queen-mother, whom the Amba.s.sadors of Spain, England, the German Empire, and Poland met on the stairs, at their head Cardinal Tournon, who had gone to call them after looking up from the courtyard to Catherine de' Medici just as she was protesting against Ambroise Pare's operation.
”Well, the sons of Louis d'Outre-Mer, the descendants of Charles de Lorraine, have proved cravens,” said the Cardinal to the Duke.
”They would have been packed off to Lorraine,” replied his brother. ”I declare to you, Charles,” he went on, ”if the crown were there for the taking, I would not put out my hand for it. That will be my son's task.”
”Will he ever have the army and the Church on his side as you have?”
”He will have something better.”
”What?”
”The people.”
”And there is no one to mourn for him but me--the poor boy who loved me so well!” said Mary Stuart, holding the cold hand of her first husband.
”How can we be reconciled to the Queen?” said the Cardinal.