Part 33 (2/2)
”To-night, sir,” replied Charles IX., ”they are ridding me of all the Huguenots. Look yonder, over the Hotel de Bourbon, at the smoke and flames: they are the smoke and flames of the admiral's house, which is on fire. Do you see that body, which these good Catholics are drawing on a torn mattress? It is the corpse of the admiral's son-in-law--the carca.s.s of your friend, Teligny.”
”What means this?” cried the King of Navarre, seeking vainly by his side for the hilt of his dagger, and trembling equally with shame and anger; for he felt that he was at the same time laughed at and threatened.
”It means,” cried Charles IX., becoming suddenly furious, and turning frightfully pale, ”it means that I will no longer have any Huguenots about me. Do you hear me, Henry?--Am I King? Am I master?”
”But, your Majesty”--
”My Majesty kills and ma.s.sacres at this moment all that is not Catholic; it is my pleasure. Are you a Catholic?” exclaimed Charles, whose anger was rising higher and higher, like an awful tide.
”Sire,” replied Henry, ”do you remember your own words, 'What matters the religion of those who serve me well'?”
”Ha! ha! ha!” cried Charles, bursting into a ferocious laugh; ”you ask me if I remember my words, Henry! '_Verba volant_,' as my sister Margot says; and had not all those”--and he pointed to the city with his finger--”served me well, also? Were they not brave in battle, wise in council, deeply devoted? They were all useful subjects--but they were Huguenots, and I want none but Catholics.”
Henry remained silent.
”Do you understand me now, Harry?” asked Charles.
”I understand, sire.”
”Well?”
”Well, sire, I do not see why the King of Navarre should not do what so many gentlemen and poor folk have done. For if they all die, poor unfortunates, it is because the same terms have been proposed to them which your Majesty proposes to me, and they have refused, as I refuse.”
Charles seized the young prince's arm, and fixed on him a look the vacancy of which suddenly changed into a fierce and savage scowl.
”What!” he said, ”do you believe that I have taken the trouble to offer the ma.s.s to those whose throats we are cutting yonder?”
”Sire,” said Henry, disengaging his arm, ”will you not die in the religion of your fathers?”
”Yes, _par la mordieu_! and you?”
”Well, sire, I will do the same!” replied Henry.
Charles uttered a roar of rage and, with trembling hand, seized his arquebuse, which lay on the table.
Henry, who stood leaning against the tapestry, with the perspiration on his brow, and nevertheless, owing to his presence of mind, calm to all appearance, followed every movement of the terrible king with the greedy stupefaction of a bird fascinated by a serpent.
Charles c.o.c.ked his arquebuse, and stamping with blind rage cried, as he dazzled Henry's eyes with the polished barrel of the deadly gun:
”Will you accept the ma.s.s?”
Henry remained mute.
Charles IX. shook the vaults of the Louvre with the most terrible oath that ever issued from the lips of man, and grew even more livid than before.
”Death, ma.s.s, or the Bastille!” he cried, taking aim at the King of Navarre.
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