"Call my brother."
His mother, who was sitting by his side, directed an attendant to call his brother Francis, the Duke of Alençon.
"No, not him," the king replied; "my brother, the King of Navarre, I mean."
Henry of Navarre was then detained in princely imprisonment in the court of Catharine. He had made many efforts to escape, but all had been unavailing.
Catharine directed that Henry should be called. In order to intimidate him, and thus to prevent him from speaking with freedom and boldness to her dying son, she ordered him to be brought through the vaults of the castle, between a double line of armed guards. Henry, as he descended into those gloomy dungeons, and saw the glittering arms of the soldiers, felt that the hour for his assassination had arrived. He, however, passed safely through, and was ushered into the chamber of his brother-in-law and former playfellow, the dying king. Charles IX., subdued by remorse and appalled by approaching death, received him with gentleness and affection, and weeping profusely, embraced him as he knelt by his bedside.
Remorse of the king.
"My brother," said the dying king, "you lose a good master and a good friend. I know that you are not the cause of the troubles which have come upon me. If I had believed all which has been told me, you would not now have been living; but I have always loved you." Then turning his eyes to the queen mother, he said energetically, "Do not trust to—" Here Catharine hastily interrupted him, and prevented the finishing of the sentence with the words "my mother."
Charles designated his brother Henry, the King of Poland, as his successor. He expressed the earnest wish that neither his younger brother, Francis, the Duke of Alençon, nor Henry, would disturb the repose of the realm. The next night, as the Cathedral clock was tolling the hour of twelve, the nurse, who was sitting, with two watchers, at the bedside of the dying monarch, heard him sighing and moaning, and then convulsively weeping. Gently she approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. Charles turned his dimmed and despairing eye upon her, and exclaimed,
"Oh, my nurse! my nurse! what blood have I shed! what murders have I committed! Great God! pardon me—pardon me!"
Death of Charles IX.