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

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      She was still in the same position when Queen Catharine sent to ask if she would not like to go with her and the whole court on a pious visitation to the hawthorn of the Cemetery of the Innocents. Marguerite’s first impulse was to refuse to take part in this cavalcade. But the thought that this excursion might possibly give her a chance to learn something new about the King of Navarre’s fate decided her to go. So she sent word that if they would have a palfrey ready for her she would willingly go with their majesties.

      Five minutes later a page came to ask if she was ready to go down, for the procession was preparing to start.

      Marguerite warned Gillonne by a gesture to look after the wounded man and so went downstairs.

      The King, the queen mother, Tavannes, and the principal Catholics were already mounted. Marguerite cast a rapid glance over the group, which was composed of about a score of persons; the King of Navarre was not of the party.

      Madame de Sauve was there. Marguerite exchanged a glance with her, and was convinced that her husband’s mistress had something to tell her.

      They rode down the Rue de l’Astruce and entered into the Rue Saint Honoré. As the populace caught sight of the King, Queen Catharine, and the principal Catholics they flocked together and followed the procession like a rising tide, and shouts rent the air.

      “Vive le Roi!”

      “Vive la Messe.”

      “Death to the Huguenots!”

      These acclamations were accompanied by the waving of ensanguined swords and smoking arquebuses, which showed the part each had taken in the awful work just accomplished.

      When they reached the top of the Rue des Prouvelles they met some men who were dragging a headless carcass. It was the admiral’s. The men were going to hang it by the feet at Montfaucon.

      They entered the Cemetery des Saints Innocents by the gate facing the Rue des Chaps, now known as the Rue des Déchargeurs; the clergy, notified in advance of the visit of the King and the queen mother, were waiting for their majesties to make them speeches.

      Madame de Sauve took advantage of a moment when Catharine was listening to one of the discourses to approach the Queen of Navarre, and beg leave to kiss her hand. Marguerite extended her arm toward her, and Madame de Sauve, as she kissed the queen’s hand, slipped a tiny roll of paper up her sleeve.

      Madame de Sauve drew back quickly and with clever dissimulation; yet Catharine perceived it, and turned round just as the maid of honor was kissing Marguerite’s hand.

      The two women saw her glance, which penetrated them like a flash of lightning, but both remained unmoved; only Madame de Sauve left Marguerite and resumed her place near Catharine.

      When Catharine had finished replying to the address which had just been made to her she smiled and beckoned the Queen of Navarre to go to her.

      “Eh, my daughter,” said the queen mother, in her Italian patois, “so you are on intimate terms with Madame de Sauve, are you?”

      Marguerite smiled in turn, and gave to her lovely countenance the bitterest expression she could, and replied:

      “Yes, mother; the serpent came to bite my hand!”

      “Aha!” replied Catharine, with a smile; “you are jealous, I think!”

      “You are mistaken, madame,” replied Marguerite; “I am no more jealous of the King of Navarre than the King of Navarre is in love with me, but I know how to distinguish my friends from my enemies. I like those that like me, and detest those that hate me. Otherwise, madame, should I be your daughter?”

      Catharine smiled so as to make Marguerite understand that if she had had any suspicion it had vanished.

      Moreover, at that instant the arrival of other pilgrims attracted the attention of the august throng.

      The Duc de Guise came with a troop of gentlemen all warm still from recent carnage. They escorted a richly decorated litter, which stopped in front of the King.

      “The Duchesse de Nevers!” cried Charles IX., “Ah! let that lovely robust Catholic come and receive our compliments. Why, they tell me, cousin, that from your own window you have been hunting Huguenots, and that you killed one with a stone.”

      The Duchesse de Nevers blushed exceedingly red.

      “Sire,” she said in a low tone, and kneeling before the King, “on the contrary, it was a wounded Catholic whom I had the good fortune to rescue.”

      “Good — good, my cousin! there are two ways of serving me: one is by exterminating my enemies, the other is by rescuing my friends. One does what one can, and I am certain that if you could have done more you would!”

      While this was going on, the populace, seeing the harmony existing between the house of Lorraine and Charles IX., shouted exultantly:

      “Vive le Roi!”

      “Vive le Duc de Guise!”

      “Vive la Messe!”

      “Do you return to the Louvre with us, Henriette?” inquired the queen mother of the lovely duchess.

      Marguerite touched her friend on the elbow, and she, understanding the sign, replied:

      “No, madame, unless your majesty desire it; for I have business in the city with her majesty the Queen of Navarre.”

      “And what are you going to do together?” inquired Catharine.

      “To see some very rare and curious Greek books found at an old Protestant pastor’s, and which have been taken to the Tower of Saint Jacques la Boucherie,” replied Marguerite.

      “You would do much better to see the last Huguenots flung into the Seine from the top of the Pont des Meuniers,” said Charles IX.; “that is the place for all good Frenchmen.”

      “We will go, if it be your Majesty’s desire,” replied the Duchesse de Nevers.

      Catharine cast a look of distrust on the two young women. Marguerite, on the watch, remarked it, and turning round uneasily, looked about her.

      This assumed or real anxiety did not escape Catharine.

      “What are you looking for?”

      “I am seeking — I do not see”— she replied.

      “Whom are you seeking? Who is it you fail to see?”

      “La Sauve,” said Marguerite; “can she have returned to the Louvre?”

      “Did I not say you were jealous?” said Catharine, in her daughter’s ear. “Oh, bestia! Come, come, Henriette,” she added, shrugging her shoulders, “begone, and take the Queen of Navarre with you.”

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