"Exactly."
"I need not prepare them, for your majesty is now as skilful at them as I am."
"You think so?" said Catharine. "They certainly succeed."
"Has your majesty anything more to say to me?" asked the perfumer.
"Nothing," replied Catharine, thoughtfully; "at least I think not, only if there is any change in the sacrifices, let me know it in time. By the way, let us leave the lambs, and try the hens."
"Alas, madame, I fear that in changing the victim we shall not change the presages."
"Do as I tell you."
The perfumer bowed and left the apartment.
Catharine mused for a short time, then rose and returning to her bedchamber, where her women awaited her, announced the pilgrimage to Montfaucon for the morrow.
The news of this pleasure party caused great excitement in the palace and great confusion in the city: the ladies prepared their most elegant toilets; the gentlemen, their finest arms and steeds; the tradesmen closed their shops, and the populace killed a few straggling Huguenots, in order to furnish company for the dead admiral.