"Nonsense!" replied Catherine. "It is a book like any other, only the leaves have a way of sticking together. Don't attempt to read it yourself, for you will have to wet the finger in turning over each leaf, which takes up so much time."
"Oh," said D'Alençon, "Henry is with the court! Give me the book, and while he is away I will put it in his room."
D'Alençon's hand was trembling as he took the book from the queen-mother, and with some hesitation and fear he entered Henry's apartment and placed the volume, open at the title-page.
But it was not Henry, but Charles, seeking his brother-in-law, who found the book and carried it off to his own room. D'Alençon found the king reading.
"By heavens, this is an admirable book!" cried Charles. "Only it seems as if they had stuck the leaves together on purpose to conceal the wonders it contains."
D'Alençon's first thought was to snatch the book from his brother, but he hesitated.
The king again moistened his finger and turned over a page. "Let me finish this chapter," he said, "and then tell me what you please. I have already read fifty pages."
"He must have tasted the poison five-and-twenty times," thought D'Alençon. "He is a dead man!"
The poison did its deadly work. Charles was taken ill while out hunting, and returned to find his dog dead, and in its mouth pieces of paper from the precious book on falconry. The king turned pale. The book was poisoned! Many things flashed across his memory, and he knew his life was doomed.
Charles summoned Renè, a Florentine, the court perfumer to Catherine de Medici, to his presence, and bade him examine the dog.