"The road thither is a narrow one," said the King, turning to a small stairway, "but nothing can be compared to it."
"Who is the angel who guards the entrance to your Eden, sire?"
"You shall see," replied Charles IX.
Signing to Henry to follow him noiselessly, he opened first one door, then another, and finally paused on a threshold.
"Look!" said he.
Henry approached and gazed on one of the most beautiful pictures he had ever seen.
A young woman of eighteen or nineteen lay sleeping, her head resting on the foot of a little bed in which a child was asleep. The woman held its little feet close to her lips, while her long hair fell over her shoulders like a flood of gold. It was like one of Albane's pictures of the Virgin and the Child Jesus.
"Oh, sire," said the King of Navarre, "who is this lovely creature?"
"The angel of my paradise, Henriot, the only one who loves me."
Henry smiled.