And Raincy stood long, long there in the open street, the sleety snow falling upon his grey head, the kerchief in his hand, marvelling at the portent.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TIGER IN THE FOX'S TRAP
Above, in the Château of Blois, there were two men waiting the coming of Henry, Duke of Guise. One was another Henry, he of Valois, King of France. He had many things to avenge—his own folly and imprudence most of all, though, indeed, these never troubled him. Only the matter of Coligny, and the sombre shades of the dead upon St. Bartholomew's Eve, haunted his repose.
At the private gathering of the conspirators, the King had found many who were willing to sympathise with him in his woes, but few who would drive the steel.
"The Parliament are to make Constable of France the man who is intent on pulling down my throne. I shudder with horror (he whined) to think that the nobles of France support the Guises in this—I speak not of fanatic bishops and loud-mouthed priests, who cry against me from every pulpit because I will not have more Colignys gibbering at my bed-foot, nor yet give them leave to burn Frenchmen by the score, as Philip does his Spaniards t'other side the mountains!"
The Marshal d'Aumont, D'O, and Lognac, the Captain of the Forty-Five Guardsmen, bowed respectful assent.
"What is the state of France, friends," the King cried, in a frenzy of rage, "I bid you tell me, when an alien disputes the throne of Francis First with the legitimate heir of Saint Louis? And what of Paris, my capital city, wherein I have lived like a bourgeois these many years, which receives him with shouts and caressings, but chases me without like a dog?—aye, like a dog!"
The comparison seemed to strike him.