The boy-King and Queen followed tremblingly the steps of their mother, who strode on in front with triumphant alacrity. Without, on the pleasant terrace bordered by walls now bristling with guns and alive with guards and archers, on the pinnacles and fretted roof of the votive chapel, which stands to the right in a tuft of trees inside a bastion, the sun shone brightly, but the blue sky and the laughing face of nature seemed but to mock the hideous spectacle in front. Close under the windows of the central gallery, a scaffold was erected covered with black, on which stood an executioner masked, clothed in a red robe. Long lines of prisoners packed closely together, a dismal crowd, wan and emaciated by imprisonment in the loathsome holes of the mediæval castle, stood by hundreds ranged against the outer walls and those of the chapel, guarded by archers and musketeers; as if such despairing wretches, about to be butchered like cattle in the shambles, needed guarding! The windows of the royal gallery were wide open, flags streamed from the architraves, and a loggia, or covered balcony, had been prepared, hung with crimson velvet, with seats for the royal princes.
Within the gallery the whole Court stood ranged against the sculptured walls. Catherine entered first. With an imperious gesture she signed to Mary, who clung, white as death, to her husband, to take her place under a royal canopy placed in the centre of the window. Francis she drew into a chair beside herself, the Chancellor, the Duc de Guise, his brother the Cardinal, and the Duc de Nemours seated themselves near. Their appearance was the signal to begin the slaughter. Prisoner after prisoner was dragged up beneath the loggia to the scaffold and hastily despatched. Cries of agony were drowned
in the screeching of fifes and the loud braying of trumpets. The mutilated bodies were flung on one side to be cast into the river, the heads borne away to be placed upon the bridge. Blood ran in streams and scented the fresh spring breezes. The executioner wearily rested from his labour, and another masked figure, dressed like himself, in red from head to foot, took his place.
Spellbound and speechless sat the young Queen. A look of horror was on her face. She had clutched the hand of Francis as she sat down, and ere a few minutes had passed, she had fainted.