"Put it off till to-morrow," said Catherine calmly, "and be present, all of you medical men; for you know what calumnies the death of a prince gives ground for."
She kissed her son's hands and withdrew.
"How coolly that audacious trader's daughter can speak of the Dauphin's death, poisoned as he was by Montecuculi, a Florentine of her suite!" cried Mary Stuart.
"Marie," said the little King, "my grandfather never cast a suspicion on her innocence."
"Cannot we hinder that woman from coming here to-morrow?" said the Queen in an undertone to her two uncles.
"What would become of us if the King should die?" replied the Cardinal. "Catherine would hurl us all into his grave."
And so that night the question stood plainly stated between Catherine de' Medici and the House of Lorraine. The arrival of the Chancellor and the Connétable de Montmorency pointed to rebellion, and the dawn of the morrow would prove decisive.
On the following day the Queen-mother was the first to appear. She found no one in her son's room but Mary Stuart, pale and fatigued from having passed the night in prayer by the bedside. The Duchesse de Guise had kept the Queen company, and the maids of honor had relieved each other. The young King was asleep.
Neither the Duke nor the Cardinal had yet appeared. The prelate, more daring than the soldier, had spent this last night, it is said, in vehement argument, without being able to induce the Duke to proclaim himself King. With the States-General sitting in the town, and the prospect of a battle to be fought with the Constable, the "Balafré" did not think the opportunity favorable; he refused to arrest the Queen-mother, the Chancellor, Cardinal de Tournon, the Gondis, Ruggieri, and Birague, in face of the revolt that would inevitably result from such violent measures. He made his brother's schemes dependent on the life of Francis II.
Perfect silence reigned in the King's bedchamber. Catherine, attended by Madame de Fieschi, came to the bedside and gazed at her son with an admirable assumption of grief. She held her handkerchief to her eyes, and retreated to the window, where Madame de Fieschi brought her a chair. From thence she could look down into the courtyard.