"Ha! is it you, D'Alençon?" said Charles; "come here and look; at the most admirable treatise on falconry that was ever produced by the pen of man."
D'Alençon's first impulse was to snatch the book from his brother's hands; but an infernal thought paralysed the movement—a frightful smile passed over his pallid lips; he drew his hand across his eyes as if something dazzled him. Then gradually recovering himself—
"Sire," said he to the king, "how can this book have come into your Majesty's hands?"
"In the most simple manner possible. I went up just now to Henriot's room, to see if he was ready to go a-hawking. He was not there, but in his stead I found this treasure, which I brought down with me to read at my ease."
And the king put his thumb to his lips and turned another page.
"Sire," stammered D'Alençon, who felt a horrible anguish come over him, "Sire, I came to tell you——"
"Let me finish this chapter, Francis," interrupted Charles. "You shall tell me whatever you like afterwards. I have read fifty pages already, or devoured them, I should rather say."
"He has tasted the poison twenty-five times!" thought Francis. "My brother is a dead man."
He wiped, with his trembling hand, the chill dew that stood upon his brow, and waited, as the king had commanded, till the chapter was finished.
The end of Charles IX. is well known. A dreadful complaint, a sweat of blood, which many historians attribute to poison, and which the Huguenots maintained to be a punishment inflicted on him by Heaven for the massacre of their brethren, rendered the latter months of his life a period of horrible torture. At his death, Henry, having every thing to dread from the animosity of Catharine, and from that of the Duke of Anjou, Charles's successor, fled from Paris, and took refuge in his kingdom of Navarre.