Part 32 (2/2)
At this moment M. de Guise pa.s.sed; he had just informed the queen of the murder of the admiral, and was returning to the butchery.
”Oh, Henry!” cried Marguerite, ”where is the King of Navarre?”
The duke looked at her with a smile of astonishment, bowed, and without any reply pa.s.sed out with his guards.
Marguerite ran to a captain who was on the point of leaving the Louvre and was engaged in having his men's arquebuses loaded.
”The King of Navarre!” she exclaimed; ”sir, where is the King of Navarre?”
”I do not know, madame,” replied the captain, ”I do not belong to his majesty's guards.”
”Ah, my dear Rene,” said the queen, recognizing Catharine's perfumer, ”is that you?--you have just left my mother. Do you know what has become of my husband?”
”His majesty the King of Navarre is no friend of mine, madame, you ought to remember that. It is even said,” he added, with a contraction of his features more like a grimace than a smile, ”it is even said that he ventures to accuse me of having been the accomplice, with Madame Catharine, in poisoning his mother.”
”No, no!” cried Marguerite, ”my good Rene, do not believe that!”
”Oh, it is of little consequence, madame!” said the perfumer; ”neither the King of Navarre nor his party is any longer to be feared!”
And he turned his back on Marguerite.
”Ah, Monsieur de Tavannes!” cried Marguerite, ”one word, I beseech you!”
Tavannes, who was going by, stopped.
”Where is Henry of Navarre?”
”Faith,” he replied, in a loud voice, ”I believe he is somewhere in the city with the Messieurs d'Alencon and de Conde.”
And then he added, in a tone so low that the queen alone could hear:
”Your majesty, if you would see him,--to be in whose place I would give my life,--go to the king's armory.”
”Thanks, Tavannes, thanks!” said Marguerite, who, of all that Tavannes had said, had heard only the chief direction; ”thank you, I will go there.”
And she went on her way, murmuring:
”Oh, after all I promised him--after the way in which he behaved to me when that ingrate, Henry de Guise, was concealed in the closet--I cannot let him peris.h.!.+”
And she knocked at the door of the King's apartments; but they were encompa.s.sed within by two companies of guards.
”No one is admitted to the King,” said the officer, coming forward.
”But I”--said Marguerite.
”The order is general.”
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