"Till you have reached the throne itself, fair cousin?" said the Queen-mother.
"No, madam, no," answered the Duke of Guise eagerly. "I thought your Majesty had known me better. I have always believed that you were one of those who felt and understood that I never dreamt of wronging my master and my king, or of snatching, as you now hinted, the crown from its lawful possessor."
"I have felt it, and I have understood it, cousin of Guise," replied Catharine de Medici. "But, alas! my Lord, I know how ambition grows upon the heart. It begins with an acorn, Guise, but it ends with an oak. Those that watch it, the very soil that bears it, perceive not its increase; and yet it soon overshadows all things, and root it out who can!"
"Madam," answered the Duke of Guise, boldly, "to follow the figure that you have used, the axe soon reduces the oak; and may the axe be used on me, and ease me of earth's ambition for ever, if any such designs as have been attributed to me exist within my bosom! You see, madam, I meet you boldly, look to ultimate consequences of ambitious designs, and fear not the result. It is such accusations that I come to repel, and it is those who have propagated them, and instilled them both into the mind of his Majesty, and, as it would appear, your own, that I come to punish. Trusting that, humble though I be, your Majesty was the best friend I had at the court of France, I have ridden straight hither, without even stopping at my own abode, to beseech you to accompany me to the presence of the King."
"I do believe, cousin of Guise, that I am your best friend at the court of France," replied the Princess. "In fact, I may say, I know that none there loves you but myself. Nor must you think that I accuse you of actual ambition, or believe the rumours that have been circulated against you. I merely wish to warn you of the growth of such things in your own bosom."
"Dear madam," replied the Duke, "had I been ambitious, what might I not have become? Here am I simply the Duke of Guise; a poor officer, commanding part of the King's troops, and contributing no small part of my own to swell his forces; with scarcely a place, a post, a government, an emolument, or a revenue, except what I derive from my own estates. Am I the most ambitious man in France? Am I so ambitious as he who adds, to the government of Metz, the government of Normandy, and piles upon that Touraine, Anjou, Saintonge, the Angoumois, seizes upon the office of High-admiral, creates himself Colonel-general of the Infantry? This, lady, is the ambitious man; but of him you seem to entertain no fear."
"There are two ambitions, my Lord Duke," replied the Queen: "the ambition which grasps at power, and the ambition which snatches at wealth: the moment that ambition mingles itself with avarice, the grovelling passion, chained in its own sordid bonds, is no longer to be feared. It is where the object is power; where there is a mind to conceive the means, and a heart to dare all the risks, that there is indeed occasion for apprehension and for precaution. Still, my Lord, I believe you; still I believe that the hand of Guise will never be raised to pull down the bonnet of Valois. You may strip the minion Epernon of the golden plumes with which he has decked his mid-air wings, for aught I care or think of; you may cast down the dark and plotting Villequier, and sweep the court of apes and parrots, fools and villains, and the whole tribe of natural and human beasts, without my saying one word to oppose you, or without my dreaming for a moment that you aim at higher things; you may even soar higher still, and like your great father become at once the guide and the defender of the state, and still I will not fear you. But Guise," she added in a softer tone, "I must and will still fear for you; and though I will go with you to the King if you continue to demand it, yet I tell you, and I warn you, that every step you take is perilous, and that I cannot be your safeguard nor your surety for a moment!"
"Madam, I must fulfil my fate," replied the Duke of Guise looking up. "I came here to justify myself; I came here to deliver and to support my friends; I came here to secure honour and safety to the Catholic Church; and did I know that the daggers of a hundred assassins would be in my bosom at the first step I took beyond those gates, I would go forth as resolutely as I came hither."
"Then I must send to announce your coming to the King," said the Queen. "Of course I cannot take you to the Louvre unannounced."
Thus saying she quitted the room for a moment, and the Duke remained behind with his arms crossed upon his bosom in deep thought. She returned in a moment, however, saying that she had sent one of her gentlemen upon the errand, and the next minute as the gates were opened for some one to go out, long and reiterated shouts of "A Guise! A Guise! Long live the Guise!" were heard echoing round the building. Catharine de Medici smiled and looked at the Duke. "How often have I heard," she said, "those same light Parisian tongues exclaim the name of different princes! I remember well, Guise, when first I came from my fair native land, how the glad multitude shouted on my way; how all the streets were strewed with flowers; and how, if I had believed the words I heard, I should have fancied that not a man in all the land but would have died to serve me; and yet, not long after, I have heard execrations murmured in the throats of the dull multitude while I passed by, and the name of Diana of Poitiers echoed through the streets. Then have I not heard the names of a Francis and a Henry shouted far and wide? and after Jarnac and Moncontour, the heavens were scarcely high enough to hold the sounds of his name who now sits upon the throne of France. To-day it is Guise they call upon!--Who shall it be to-morrow? And then another and another still shall come, the object of an hour's love changed into hatred in a moment."