Beside that bed of sorrow where Mary Stuart prayed and watched and wept, a most interesting drama depended for its conclusion upon the life or death of the son of Henri II.
The real question, although others were interested in its solution, lay between a pale woman and a sinister-looking man, who were seated side by side in the evening of December 4 a few steps from the sleeping invalid, and from Mary, who was weeping silently at his pillow.
The man was Charles de Lorraine, the woman Catherine de Médicis.
The revengeful queen-mother, who had at first been as one dead after the struggle which we have related at the accession of her son, had awakened during the last eight months, since the "Tumult of Amboise."
This, in brief, is what she had done in the bitterness of her hatred against the Guises: she had entered into a secret alliance with the Prince de Condé and Antoine de Bourbon; she had effected a reconciliation secretly with the old Constable de Montmorency. Nought but hatred can cause hatred to be forgotten.
Her new and ill-assorted friends, urged on by her, had fomented rebellion in various provinces, had aroused Dauphiné under Montbrun, and Provence under the brothers Mouvans, and had caused an attempt to be made upon Lyons by Maligny.
The Guises, on their side, were by no means asleep. They had assembled the States-General at Orléans, and had taken care to have a majority devoted to them.
Then, too, they had summoned the King of Navarre and the Prince de Condé to attend the States-General, as was their right.
Catherine de Médicis sent warning after warning to the princes to dissuade them from putting themselves in their enemy's power; but their duty called them, and the Cardinal de Lorraine gave them the king's word as a pledge of their security.
Therefore they came to Orléans.