Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846. Various

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      "Save him! save him!" cried Jocelyne, with outstretched arms. "You have influence – you can approach the king – you can save him if you will. And you will save him – will you not?"

      "Of whom do you speak, my pretty maiden?" said the princess in surprise.

      "Of Monseigneur the Count Philip de la Mole!" sobbed Jocelyne.

      "Philip de la Mole!" exclaimed Margaret aghast. "What ails him, girl? You bid me save him – Why? What mean you?"

      "Oh! madam, know you not," pursued the sobbing girl, "that he has been arrested for treason – for a conspiracy against the life of the king? that he is at this moment a prisoner, and that his life is threatened?"

      "La Mole! arrested! accused of attempting the life of Charles!" cried the Queen of Navarre in the highest agitation. "And I knew naught of this? Is it true? How did you learn the story? Do you come from him? Speak, girl, speak, I say!"

      "He was arrested, madam, in our very house," stammered Jocelyne, wringing her hands. "He had sought a refuge there – and he there lay concealed. But, alas! my poor grandmother, her wits are at times unsettled. Oh! she knew not what she did. Believe me she did not know. A treacherous villain worked upon her wavering mind – she betrayed him. They took him from the room a prisoner. I would have led my grandmother to seek his pardon at the feet of the king, who loved her so well that he would refuse her nothing; but soldiers guarded our doors; they would not let us pass. Then I bethought myself of the window. Our house is on the bridge, and looks upon the river. Below was a mill and the miller's boat. He is a good man, and kind of heart. I knew that he would row me to the shore. Alayn, my cousin, would have prevented me; but I would not hear him. What was the rushing stream, or the whirling mill-wheel to me? I saw not danger when I thought I could save the noble Count."

      "Brave girl! brave girl!" interrupted Margaret, in palpitating excitement.

      "There were beams and posts that descended to the water's edge," pursued Jocelyne, her eyes sparkling and her cheek now flushed with the animation of her tale. "Alayn aided me, although unwillingly, with cord and linen. I reached the mill – the boat. The miller rowed me to the shore. I knew I could not approach the king; but I bethought me of you, madam – for they say – they say, you love him well." At these words Jocelyne hesitated, with a mixture of feelings, in which bashful timidity struggled with her jealousy of the great lady before whom she knelt.

      "Pursue, girl, pursue," said Margaret, an instantaneous blush again colouring that cheek, from which alarm had driven all colour.

      "Yes; and I knew that you would save him," continued the excited girl, stretching out her hands in anguish. "He is your own brother – he – the king, the dispenser of life and death; and he will listen to you. And you will save the Count, will you not?"

      "Yes – yes, girl! I will do all I can!" said the princess walking up and down in agitation. "Rise, rise – your tale is confused. I know not what all this may mean; but the truth is there. He is a prisoner! Oh, La Mole! La Mole! Whether has your imprudence driven you? And were it for me that he has done thus. Yes – yes I will to my brother Charles – I will learn all – supplicate – save him!"

      With these words, half murmured to herself, half addressed to Jocelyne, the Queen of Navarre paced her room. Then making another sign to the unhappy girl to rise and remain, she took a whistle lying on a table, and whistled to call those without.

      The hangings of the door were parted. But instead of one of her attendant ladies, it was the calm imposing form of Catherine de Medicis that entered the apartment.

      Margaret started back as if she had seen a spectre.

      "My mother!" burst involuntarily from her lips in a tone of alarm; for she divined, by rapid instinct, that such a visit could bode naught but evil.

      The Queen-mother cast a searching glance over the two agitated females, and smiled as if, with that quickness of intelligence which characterised her cunning mind, she had discovered at once the meaning of the scene before her. With an imperious wave of the hand she signified her desire that the damsel should leave the room, since she would speak with her daughter. In spite of her agitation and distress, Margaret of Valois, with that implicit obedience to her mother's will which, in common with all the children of Catherine de Medicis, (except the unhappy Charles in the latter years of his hardly wrought and dearly paid emancipation from her authority,) she never ventured to refuse. She bid Jocelyne leave them; and the fair girl retired with trembling steps and sinking heart. The apparition of the Queen-mother had appalled her.

      Catherine motioned to her daughter to be seated on a low stool, and taking herself a high-backed chair, smiled with her usual bland and treacherous smile.

      "You seem agitated, Margaret, ma mie," commenced the Queen-mother, after a due pause. "I have come to condole and sympathise with you in your distress. Much as I may have blamed your misplaced and unbecoming attachment to an obscure courtier, almost an adventurer in this palace, I cannot but feel that you must suffer from the discovery of the utter baseness of this man. Look not thus surprised. I see you have already learned his arrest – your whole manner betrays it."

      "You speak of – ," stammered Margaret, trembling.

      "I speak of Philip de la Mole," said the Queen coldly.

      "It is true, then?" pursued her daughter. "He is arrested on a charge of treason. Oh, no! It cannot be! He is innocent!"

      "He is guilty!" said Catherine coldly. "I have evidence the most incontrovertible, that he has conspired against the life of the king, your brother, by the foulest acts of sorcery. A wax figure, fashioned as a king, pierced to the heart by his very hand, has been laid before me. Your brother's illness, his mortal pains, his malady so incomprehensible, all declare that the hellish deed has but too much succeeded up to this hour."

      Margaret shook her head with a smile of contempt and doubt.

      "But for what purpose was designed this murderous act?" pursued the Queen-mother. "In despite of the rights of Henry of Anjou, to place his master, your brother, the Duke of Alençon, upon the throne upon the death of Charles. We have every proof that so it was."

      "For Alençon!" stammered the princess.

      "It was for him," continued Catherine, unheeding this interruption, but with an increasing smile of satisfaction, "that these treasonable plots were designed, and partly executed. The ambitious favourite thought, by his master's hand, to rule the destinies of France. But the traitor will now reap the fruits of his black treachery."

      "For Alençon!" repeated Margaret in a tone of regret.

      "Doubt not that I sympathise in all your sorrow at this discovery, my child," resumed the Queen-mother. "Bitterly indeed must you feel how the base traitor has betrayed and forgotten the woman who loved him so fondly, so imprudently."

      "For Alençon!" again muttered Margaret with sunken head.

      "Be this the punishment of your folly, and its reparation," pursued Catherine, after a pause. "Long ago should you have ceased to cherish an attachment for one so unworthy. But you have too soft a heart, Margaret, my girl; you are too kind. I wonder and admire the sacrifice of your own feelings, and the woman's weakness with which you could hear and compassionate the supplications of his mistress."

      "Madam!" said the princess lifting her head in surprise.

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