In addition to this, an attack of nervous melancholy, caused by his malady, had seized him as he left the protracted council which had taken place in his private cabinet. Marie saw that he was in one of those crises when the least word, even of love, would be importunate and painful; so she remained kneeling quietly beside him, her head on his knee, the king's hand buried in her hair, and he himself motionless, without a word, without a sigh, as still as Marie herself, --Charles IX. in the lethargy of impotence, Marie in the stupor of despair which comes to a loving woman when she perceives the boundaries at which love ends.
The lovers thus remained, in the deepest silence, during one of those terrible hours when all reflection wounds, when the clouds of an inward tempest veil even the memory of happiness. Marie believed that she herself was partly the cause of this frightful dejection. She asked herself, not without horror, if the excessive joys and the violent love which she had never yet found strength to resist, did not contribute to weaken the mind and body of the king. As she raised her eyes, bathed in tears, toward her lover, she saw the slow tears rolling down his pallid cheeks. This mark of the sympathy that united them so moved the king that he rushed from his depression like a spurred horse. He took Marie in his arms and placed her on the sofa.
"I will no longer be a king," he cried. "I will be your lover, your lover only, wholly given up to that happiness. I will die happy, and not consumed by the cares and miseries of a throne."The tone of these words, the fire that shone in the half-extinct eyes of the king, gave Marie a terrible shock instead of happiness; she blamed her love as an accomplice in the malady of which the king was dying.
"Meanwhile you forget your prisoners," she said, rising abruptly.
"Hey! what care I for them? I give them leave to kill me.""What! are they murderers?"
"Oh, don't be frightened, little one; we hold them fast. Don't think of them, but of me. Do you love me?""Sire!" she cried.
"Sire!" he repeated, sparks darting from his eyes, so violent was the rush of his anger at the untimely respect of his mistress. "You are in league with my mother.""O God!" cried Marie, looking at the picture above her /prie-dieu/ and turning toward it to say her prayer, "grant that he comprehend me!""Ah!" said the king suspiciously, "you have some wrong to me upon your conscience!" Then looking at her from between his arms, he plunged his eyes into hers. "I have heard some talk of the mad passion of a certain Entragues," he went on wildly. "Ever since their grandfather, the soldier Balzac, married a viscontessa at Milan that family hold their heads too high."Marie looked at the king with so proud an air that he was ashamed. At that instant the cries of little Charles de Valois, who had just awakened, were heard in the next room. Marie ran to the door.
"Come in, Bourguignonne!" she said, taking the child from its nurse and carrying it to the king. "You are more of a child than he," she cried, half angry, half appeased.
"He is beautiful!" said Charles IX., taking his son in his arms.
"I alone know how like he is to you," said Marie; "already he has your smile and your gestures.""So tiny as that!" said the king, laughing at her.
"Oh, I know men don't believe such things; but watch him, my Charlot, play with him. Look there! See! Am I not right?""True!" exclaimed the king, astonished by a motion of the child which seemed the very miniature of a gesture of his own.
"Ah, the pretty flower!" cried the mother. "Never shall he leave us!
/He/ will never cause me grief."
The king frolicked with his son; he tossed him in his arms, and kissed him passionately, talking the foolish, unmeaning talk, the pretty, baby language invented by nurses and mothers. His voice grew child-like. At last his forehead cleared, joy returned to his saddened face, and then, as Marie saw that he had forgotten his troubles, she laid her head upon his shoulder and whispered in his ear:--"Won't you tell me, Charlot, why you have made me keep murderers in my house? Who are these men, and what do you mean to do with them? In short, I want to know what you were doing on the roofs. I hope there was no woman in the business?""Then you love me as much as ever!" cried the king, meeting the clear, interrogatory glance that women know so well how to cast upon occasion.
"You doubted /me/," she replied, as a tear shone on her beautiful eyelashes.
"There are women in my adventure," said the king; "but they are sorceresses. How far had I told you?""You were on the roofs near by--what street was it?""Rue Saint-Honore, sweetest," said the king, who seemed to have recovered himself. Collecting this thoughts, he began to explain to his mistress what had happened, as if to prepare her for a scene that was presently to take place in her presence.
"As I was passing through the street last night on a frolic," he said, "I chanced to see a bright light from the dormer window of the house occupied by Rene, my mother's glover and perfumer, and once yours. Ihave strong doubts about that man and what goes on in his house. If Iam poisoned, the drug will come from there."
"I shall dismiss him to-morrow."
"Ah! so you kept him after I had given him up?" cried the king. "Ithought my life was safe with you," he added gloomily; "but no doubt death is following me even here.""But, my dearest, I have only just returned from Dauphine with our dauphin," she said, smiling, "and Rene has supplied me with nothing since the death of the Queen of Navarre. Go on; you climbed to the roof of Rene's house?"
