"So I understand. Well, then, I'll tell you what it is, Choisseul: I believe the fellow has come here for no good—I believe, in short, that he has designs upon the queen. Now, my good fellow, will you undertake to ascertain this for me? Will you watch their proceedings, watch them narrowly, and give me instant information of anything suspicious that may come to your knowledge—and ye shall not miss of your reward?" added the earl, now opening a little desk which stood before him, and taking from it a well-filled purse.
Choisseul, with many bows and grimaces, readily undertook to play the knave, and, with still more, took the price of his knavery, the purse already alluded to, which the earl now handed him.
"Now, Choisseul," said Murray, just before dismissing the miscreant, "I may depend on you?"
"Mine honneur," replied the Frenchman, placing his hand on his breast, with a theatrical air, and bowing to the ground as he pronounced the words—"Je suis votre serviteur till die."
"Enough," said the earl, waving his hand as a signal to him to retire; "be vigilant and prompt in communicating with me when you have anything of consequence to say."
Choisseul again bowed low, and left the apartment. In the meantime, the gallant, accomplished, but imprudent Chatelard, hurried blindly along by the impetuosity of his passion, and altogether unsettled by the intoxicating belief that his love was returned—a belief which had now taken so fast a hold of his understanding that nothing could loosen it—proceeded from one impropriety to another, till he at length committed one which all but brought matters to a crisis; and this was avoided only by its having escaped the vigilance of Choisseul, and having been compassionately concealed by the queen herself.
On retiring one night, early in February, 1563, to her sleeping apartment, Mary and her attendants were suddenly alarmed by an extraordinary movement in a small closet or wardrobe, in which was kept the clothes the queen was in the habit of daily using. The maids would have screamed out and fled from the apartment, but were checked in both these feminine resorts by observing the calm and collected manner of their mistress, in which there was not the slightest appearance of perturbation.
"Ladies, ladies," she exclaimed, laughingly, as her attendants were about to rush out of the room, "what a pretty pair of heroines ye are! Shame, shame! ye surely would not leave your mistress alone, in the midst of such a perilous adventure as this. Come hither," she added, at the same time stepping towards her toilet, and taking up a small silver lamp that burned on it, "and let us see who this intruder is—whether ghost or gallant."
Saying this—her maids having returned, reassured by her intrepidity—she proceeded, with steady step, towards the suspected closet, seized the door by the handle, flung it boldly open, and discovered, to the astonished eyes of her attendants, and to her own inexpressible amazement, the poet Chatelard, armed with sword and dagger. For some seconds the queen uttered not a syllable; but a flush of indignation and of insulted pride suffused her exquisitely lovely countenance.
"Chatelard," she at length said, in a tone of calm severity, and with a dignity of manner becoming her high state and lineage, "come forth and answer for this daring and atrocious conduct, this unheard-of insolence and presumption." Chatelard obeyed, and was about to throw himself at her feet, when she sternly forbade him.