"Monsieur Chapelain," said he to the first physician, "try your injection."
"That will take but an instant," said Chapelain, quickly. "Everything is prepared."
With the assistance of his confrères, he injected his preparation into the king's ear.
Mary Stuart, the Guises, Gabriel, and Ambroise allowed them to do as they chose, and said nothing; they were completely crushed, and as if turned to stone.
The constable chattered away like a madman.
"This is very well!" said he, well pleased with the forced docility of Master Paré. "When I think that if it had not been for me you would have opened the king's head in such fashion! Kings of France are only wounded so upon the battle-field, do you see? The steel of an enemy may touch them, but a surgeon's knife never!"
And then, exulting over the dejected attitude of the Duc de Guise, he continued,—
"It was quite time that I should arrive, thank God! Ah, Messieurs, they tell me that you proposed to cut off the head of my dear brave nephew, the Prince de Condé! But you aroused the old lion in his lair, and behold him! I have delivered the prince; I have addressed the States-General, who are restive under your oppression. I have, as constable, dismissed the guards you stationed at the gates of Orléans. Since when has it been customary thus to furnish guards to the king, as if he were not safe in the midst of his loyal subjects?"
"Of what king are you speaking?" demanded Ambroise Paré; "for soon there will be no king save Charles IX.,—for you see, Messieurs," said he to the physicians, "that despite your injection, the brain is already affected, and is beginning to be filled."
Catherine de Médicis clearly read in the hopeless air of Ambroise that all hope was at an end.