All took up the cry except Duc François.
"Ah, she has betrayed me!" murmured he, digging his nails into his breast.
"I have won," cried Catharine, "and that hateful Béarnais will not reign!"
CHAPTER LXVI.
EPILOGUE.
One year had elapsed since the death of Charles IX. and the accession of his successor to the throne.
King Henry III., happily reigning by the grace of God and his mother Catharine, was attending a fine procession given in honor of Notre Dame de Cléry.
He had gone on foot with the queen, his wife, and all the court.
King Henry III. could well afford this little pastime, for no serious business occupied him for the moment. The King of Navarre was in Navarre, where he had so long desired to be, and where he was said to be very much taken up with a beautiful girl of the blood of the Montmorencies whom he called La Fosseuse. Marguerite was with him, sad and gloomy, finding in the beautiful mountains not distraction but a softening of the two greatest griefs of life,—absence and death.