Part 48 (2/2)
”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.”
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