CHAPTER XV.
CATHERINE’S VENGEANCE.
MEANWHILE the conspirators, emboldened by the news of the edict of Amboise, carried out their purpose exactly as the Queen-mother intended, with perfect confidence and little concealment. Catherine’s object was to draw them towards Amboise and there destroy them. Band after band, in small detachments the better to avoid suspicion, rode up from Nantes where they lay, to concentrate in force on the Loire and within Amboise itself. When sufficiently strong they proposed to carry off the King and Queen by a coup-de-main, make away with the Jesuitical Guises, banish the Queen-mother to some distant fortress, and place Condé on the throne as Regent.
They came through the plains of Touraine, halting beside solitary farms, in the vineyards, under the willows and tufted underwood that border the rivers, and through the dark forests that lie on the hills behind Amboise. Band after band reached certain points, halted at the spots indicated to them, and met other detachments with whom they were to act; but not one of them was heard of more.
The walls of the castle of Amboise bristled with troops, and the open country towards Loches was full of soldiers. Trusty guards stationed on the double bridge across the Loire were instructed by the Duc de Guise, who wielded absolute power and who had now gained minute knowledge of the plot, to take all
