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

"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.

"But even now I saw her at your feet," continued her mother, with a slight sneer, "begging you to intercede to obtain his pardon."

"His mistress! speak you of La Mole, madam?" exclaimed Margaret.

"What! you knew not, child, what all the court can tell you," replied Catherine, "that of this chit-faced grandchild of that old Huguenot, whom Charles so favoured, Philip de la Mole had made his light o' love? Ay, so it was. It was the talk and scandal of the palace. Where was he discovered on his arrest? In the girl's chamber, as I hear. And now she dares to come and tear her hair, and whine out for mercy for her paramour, at your feet – at yours! Effrontery could go no further!"

"Philip! could he be so base?" murmured Margaret to herself. "But yes – her tears – her agony! Oh! it is true! And he must love her well, that she should thus, at the hazard of her life" —

The Queen-mother smiled with satisfaction, as she saw that mistrust had entered Margaret's mind; but to make her purpose sure, she remained long, to comfort and console her daughter, as she said, with words of false sympathy, and hypocritical advice.

When at last she saw Margaret thus convinced of La Mole's utter unworthiness, and knew that injured pride and offended dignity had usurped in her heart the place, where, so shortly before, love alone had throned, Catherine de Medicis rose and retired.

Margaret did not weep. She was one lightly moved by the more violent as the tenderer feelings of a woman's heart, and she was proud. She sat still, unmoved, with her hands clenched before her, when a slight movement in the apartment startled her. Upon raising her head she saw Jocelyne before her.

"You here, my mistress?" she exclaimed in anger.

"They would have bid me begone," said Jocelyne timidly; "but I concealed myself; and when her majesty the Queen-mother had gone forth, I returned unperceived."

"And you again dare to affront my presence?" said Margaret rising. "This is unheard of insolence."

"Alas, madam!" replied Jocelyne trembling, "I did but seek a last assurance that you would save him."

"Away with you, mistress," continued the princess, her eyes flashing with anger. "La Mole is but a traitor, as are men all. Let him meet his deserts. But I wonder at myself that I should bandy words with you. Go to your lover, girl, and comfort him as best you may."

"My lover! he!" murmured Jocelyne; "alas! he never loved me!"

Overwhelmed with the rude reception she had so unexpectedly received from the princess, who, but a short time before, had listened to her with so much eager interest, the poor girl moved with unsteady step towards the door.

"He loved you not, say you?" burst forth Margaret as to recall her. "Speak! He loved you not – this – young Count?"

"Madam," said Jocelyne, turning her head, but with downcast eyes, "in this dreadful moment, when he lies a prisoner, his life in danger, I can avow, what I could scarcely dare avow even to myself, that I loved him with a passionate and unrequited love. I loved him with an eager and devoted affection, although his heart was not mine – poor simple uncourtly girl as I am – although it was another's. He too loved, I know – but it was a great and noble lady, more worthy of him than was I. Pardon me, madam, if I dared to think she loved him too."

"Come hither, maiden, once again," said the princess in agitation. "He loved another, you say – this Count de la Mole – and who was she?"

"Madam," replied Jocelyne in embarrassment, "I have already craved your pardon that I should have ventured even to surmise it!"

"Ah!" sighed forth Margaret with a gleam of satisfaction in her face. "Come back, my girl, come back!" she resumed. "I have treated you harshly. I knew not what I did. Hear me – this Count has proved a traitor to his king; perhaps, I may fancy, a traitor to others also; he has conspired to turn away the rightful succession of the crown. But I believe him not guilty of all the black arts of which he is accused. I would save him from the unhappy consequences of his error, if I could. But what can I do? My mother is fearfully incensed against him!"

"Oh, madam, you have access to the king!" cried Jocelyne imploringly. "He is your brother – and the power to save or to destroy is his. He will not refuse you, if you entreat his pardon and mercy for the Count."

Margaret shook her head doubtfully.

"Alas!" she said, with a look of distress, "other influences are at work which mine cannot resist. I knew not all – but now I tremble."

Jocelyne still entreated, in all the agony of despair; and the young Princess, again calling to her ladies, and learning that the Queen-mother had returned to her own apartment, at last departed from her chamber, bidding her fair suppliant await her return.

Long, eternally long, appeared those minutes, as the unhappy girl still waited for that return which she imagined was to bring her the news of life or death. To calm the agitation of her mind, she prayed. But her thoughts were far too disturbed for prayer; and the prayer brought her no comfort.

At length the Queen of Navarre came back to her apartment – as Jocelyne looked in her face, she could scarcely repress a scream; that face was one of sorrow, and disappointment – the poor girl trembled in every limb, and did not dare to speak.

"I have done all I could," said Margaret – "His door was obstinately closed to me – I could not see him – it was she – it was my mother, who has done this. I know it well."

"What is to be done? whether turn for help?" cried Jocelyne in dispair. "Oh! would that I could lay down my life to save his."

"Noble girl!" exclaimed the princess. "Thus devoted, whilst he loves another! How far more generous than was I; ay, I believe thee – couldst thou lay down thy life for him, thou wouldst do it."

"And is there no hope of seeking pardon at his hands?" resumed the afflicted girl.

"In time, perhaps – at another opportunity," replied Margaret; "but now my mother's influence triumphs."

"Another opportunity!" sobbed Jocelyne. "In time! Alas! such words are words of mockery – the king is dying – at his death the Queen-mother will command; and what have we then to hope?"

"Dying? the king – my brother!" exclaimed the Queen of Navarre – you rave, girl! he is ill – I know, but" —

"Know you not, madam," interrupted Jocelyne, "what all the city of Paris knows – that the king cannot live long – not many hours, perhaps – that he lies upon his death-bed?"

"Charles – dying! And my mother has concealed it from me!" cried Margaret. "I see through all her designs! she would keep us from his presence, that he bestow not upon my husband, whom he loves, the reins of power at his death. Charles – dying! Then there lies our only hope. If he die, let Henry of Navarre be Regent – he will listen to my prayer – and La Mole is saved. Yes, there lies the only chance. I will to my husband. We may have still time to effect our purpose, and secure the Regency, in these few last hours of the reign."

CHAPTER V

"O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye;The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,Are turned to one thread, one little hair;My heart hath one poor string to stay it by —* * *"All this thou see'st is but a clod,And module of confounded royalty."* * *"But now a king – now thus —This was now a king, and now is clay."Shakspeare.

The miserable king lay, indeed, upon his bed of death. He had refused to quit the room which he usually occupied, all encumbered as it was with his favourite hounds, his hunting accoutrements, and these horns, the winding of which had been his favourite amusement, and had contributed so powerfully to affect his lungs, and undermine his constitution. A sort of couch had been prepared for him of mattresses and cushions upon the floor; and upon that rude bed was the emaciated form of the dying monarch extended. To his customary attacks of blood-spitting, had succeeded a strange, and, until then, unknown symptom of malady, from which the very physicians recoiled with horror. Drops of red moisture, which bore all the appearance of blood, had burst, like perspiration, from the pores of the body; and there were moments when the wretched man writhed on his couch in the double anguish of body and mind, that, in spite of the efforts of the physicians to remove this extraordinary appearance, he might have been thought to be bathed in gore.

It was indeed an agony, and a bloody sweat!

The physicians had long since declared that there was no hope. In one of those fitful bursts of anger, in which Charles from time to time indulged, even in his state of exhaustion and in his dying moments, he had desired to be left by his doctors and attendants, and he slumbered his last slumber in this world, before closing his eyes for ever in the great sleep of death, to wake upon another. One person alone sat by the side of his couch; and that person was one, whom the incessant intriguing efforts of his mother would have taught him was his bitterest enemy.

That ivory paleness which had been so characteristic a trait of Charles, and had added at once to the melancholy and majesty of his face, was now of a yellow waxen colour, which might be said to increase from minute to minute in lividness of hue. His large nose stood frightfully prominent from those hollow sunken cheeks; his lips, in life, red almost to bleeding, were now ashy pale. Beneath his thin lids, the eyeballs, sunken into the deep cavities of his eyes, might be seen to roll and palpitate; whilst from his open and distorted mouth burst forth, even in his troubled sleep, moans, and then words of anguish.

The man who sat by his side, listened with varying feelings. Sometimes he started back with a movement of horror; sometimes he again bent forward in compassion, and with a kerchief lightly wiped away that fearful perspiration which burst from the hollow temples of the young man. The aspect of this personage was noble; his forehead was bold; his nose formed with that eagle curve which seems fashioned for command. The expression of his grey eyes denoted both resolution and wariness; whilst a general look of good temper and openness, which amounted almost to insouciance, pervaded the whole face. He was clothed in black. It was Henry of Navarre, the ill-used and betrayed victim of Catherine's policy.

During the whole reign of Charles IX., the Queen-mother had used every effort to instil into his mind suspicions of the loyalty of the man, who, were the Valois to die childless, would be heir to the throne of France; and whom the decrees of Providence finally led, through the wiles and plots set to snare his liberty and his life, and in the midst of the clashing of contending parties, to rule the destinies of the country, as Henry the Fourth. Henry of Navarre, whom the artifice and calumny of a Medicis had done their best to separate and estrange from his king and brother-in-law during life, was now the only attendant upon his last moments – the only friend to press his dying hand and close his eyes. By a last exercise of his authority, Charles had declared that it was his will that Henry of Navarre, and he alone, should be permitted to approach his couch, and receive his last instructions; and in spite of all the manœuvres of the crafty Catherine, who no longer ventured openly to oppose her son's commands, the two princes were united in this supreme and awful hour.

And now Henry of Navarre sat and watched his dying relation with oppressed and anxious heart, aware that, were the king to die without providing for his safety by a last exercise of his power, his liberty, and even his life, would be in danger from the manœuvres of the revengeful Catherine; that his only chance of escape was in flight before the death of the expiring king; and yet, too noble and generous to leave the man who, at such a time, had called him to his side, he sat and watched.

Presently the king rolled convulsively upon his couch; his parted lips quivered horribly; and with a mutter, which increased at last into a distinct and piercing scream, he let fall the words —

"Away – away – torment me not! Why do you haunt me thus? Fire – fire! Kill – kill! No – spare them – spare them, and spare me a hopeless misery. Ah! they fly – they bleed – they fall. And the poor old Admiral – his grey heirs are dabbled with blood. Away – away – it was not I – not I! Ah!" —

With a sudden start of horror, the king lifted his head from his pillow, and for a time gazed with staring and glassy eyes, as if the hideous vision which had tortured his sleep were still before him. Then with a bitter groan, he again fell back upon his couch. Again he raised his head, and, looking upon Henry, said, with a faint and plaintive voice, that contrasted strangely with these brusque and harsh tones which were natural to him,

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1

This has been recently the subject of a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, in the case of Egan v. The Guardians of the Kensington Union, 3 Queen's Bench Reports, p. 935, note (a). The same rule applies to physicians. Veitch v. Russell, ib. 928.

2

Leading counsel, indeed all counsel much engaged in business, necessarily place their time almost altogether at the disposal of their clerks, whose duty it is to keep an exact record of their employer's engagements, and see that no incompatible ones are made for him. Counsel find quite enough to do, in adequately attending to the matters actually put before them by their clerks, without being harassed by adjusting the very troublesome arrangements and appointments, for time and place, where their duties are to be performed or, at all events, doing more than keeping a general superintendence over their arrangements thus made. To all this must be added those innumerable contingencies in the arrangements of the courts, and the course of business, which no one can possibly foresee; and which often derange a whole series of arrangements, however cautiously and prudently made, and render counsel unable, after having carefully mastered their cases, to attend at the trial or argument.

3

The clerk of a barrister has a fee on every fee of his employer, in a long-settled proportion of 2s. 6d. on all fees under five guineas; from, and inclusive of five guineas, up to ten guineas, 5s.; from ten guineas, 10s., and so on for higher fees.

4

Phil. c. vi. sec. 7.

5

Adapted from Edmund Burke.

6

Sir Walter Raleigh —History of the World, last paragraph.