However, before departing, and as if thinking better of his determination,—
"Sire," said he, "allow me one word more, to fulfil my last duty to the memory of your glorious father. He who struck the fatal blow, the author of all our grief, was not perhaps simply careless, Sire,—at least I have reason to think so. In this melancholy catastrophe there may have been—in my opinion, there was—an element of criminal intent. The man whom I accuse did, I know, consider himself wronged by the late king. Your Majesty will without doubt order a strict inquiry into this matter."
The Duc de Guise was alarmed at this formal and dangerous charge against Gabriel; but Catherine de Médicis took it upon herself to reply.
"Be assured, Monsieur," said she to the constable, "that your intervention was not needed to remind us of such a deed as that; for the necessity of dealing promptly with the offender is not forgotten by those to whom the kingly existence so cruelly terminated was quite as precious as to you. I, the widow of Henri II., cannot yield to any other person in the world the initiative in such a matter. Therefore be quite easy, Monsieur; your solicitude is premature. You may withdraw with your mind at rest on that point."
"I have nothing further to say, then," said the constable.
He was not even to be allowed to gratify in person his implacable resentment to the Comte de Montgommery, and to pose as the denouncer of the culprit and the avenger of his master.
Suffocated with shame and anger, he went from the royal presence in despair.
He departed the same evening for his estate at Chantilly.
That day Madame de Valentinois also quitted the Louvre, where she had been more of a queen than the queen herself, for her gloomy and distant exile at Chaumont-sur-Loire, whence she never returned while she lived.
Thus Gabriel's vengeance upon Madame de Poitiers was complete.