DE MOUY DE SAINT PHALE.
This time Catharine had taken such precautions that she felt sure of her object.
Consequently, about ten o'clock she sent away Marguerite, thoroughly convinced, as was the case, that the Queen of Navarre was ignorant of the plot against her husband, and went to the King, begging him not to retire so early.
Mystified by the air of triumph which, in spite of her usual dissimulation, appeared on his mother's face, Charles questioned Catharine, who merely answered:
"I can say only one thing to your Majesty: that this evening you will be freed from two of your bitterest enemies."
Charles raised his eyebrows like a man who says to himself:
"That is well; we shall see;" and whistling to his great boar-hound, who came to him dragging his belly along the ground like a serpent to lay his fine and intelligent head on his master's knee, he waited. At the end of a few minutes, during which Catharine sat with eyes and ears alert, a pistol-shot was heard in the courtyard of the Louvre.
"What is that noise?" asked Charles, frowning, while the hound sprang up and pricked his ears.
"Nothing except a signal," said Catharine; "that is all."
"And what is the meaning of the signal?"