Some days before the terrible end of the reign of Francois II., the king insisted on sailing down the Loire, wishing not to be in the town of Orleans on the day when the Prince de Conde was executed. Having yielded the head of the prince to the Cardinal de Lorraine, he was equally in dread of a rebellion among the townspeople and of the prayers and supplications of the Princesse de Conde. At the moment of embarkation, one of the cold winds which sweep along the Loire at the beginning of winter gave him so sharp an ear-ache that he was obliged to return to his apartments; there he took to his bed, not leaving it again until he died. In contradiction of the doctors, who, with the exception of Chapelain, were his enemies, Ambroise Pare insisted that an abscess was formed in the king’s head, and that unless an issue were given to it, the danger of death would increase daily. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, and the curfew law, which was sternly enforced in Orleans, at this time practically in a state of siege, Pare’s lamp shone from his window, and he was deep in study, when Lecamus called to him from below. Recognizing the voice of his old friend, Pare ordered that he should be admitted.

“You take no rest, Ambroise; while saving the lives of others you are wasting your own,” said the furrier as he entered, looking at the surgeon, who sat, with opened books and scattered instruments, before the head of a dead man, lately buried and now disinterred, in which he had cut an opening.

“It is a matter of saving the king’s life.”

“Are you sure of doing it, Ambroise?” cried the old man, trembling.

“As sure as I am of my own existence. The king, my old friend, has a morbid ulcer pressing on his brain, which will presently suffice it if no vent is given to it, and the danger is imminent. But by boring the skull I expect to release the pus and clear the head. I have already performed this operation three times. It was invented by a Piedmontese; but I have had the honor to perfect it. The first operation I performed was at the siege of Metz, on Monsieur de Pienne, whom I cured, who was afterwards all the more intelligent in consequence. His was an abscess caused by the blow of an arquebuse. The second was on the head of a pauper, on whom I wanted to prove the value of the audacious operation Monsieur de Pienne had allowed me to perform. The third I did in Paris on a gentleman who is now entirely recovered. Trepanning—that is the name given to the operation—is very little known. Patients refuse it, partly because of the imperfection of the instruments; but I have at last improved them. I am practising now on this skull, that I may be sure of not failing to-morrow, when I operate on the head of the king.”

“You ought indeed to be very sure you are right, for your own head would be in danger in case—”

“I’d wager my life I can cure him,” replied Ambroise, with the conviction of a man of genius. “Ah! my old friend, where’s the danger of boring into a skull with proper precautions? That is what soldiers do in battle every day of their lives, without taking any precautions.”

“My son,” said the burgher, boldly, “do you know that to save the king is to ruin France? Do you know that this instrument of yours will place the crown of the Valois on the head of the Lorrain who calls himself the heir of Charlemagne? Do you know that surgery and policy are at this moment sternly opposed to each other? Yes, the triumph of your genius will be the death of your religion. If the Guises gain the regency, the blood of the Reformers will flow like water. Be a greater citizen than you are a surgeon; oversleep yourself to-morrow morning and leave a free field to the other doctors who if they cannot cure the king will cure France.”

“I!” exclaimed Pare. “I leave a man to die when I can cure him? No, no! were I to hang as an abettor of Calvin I shall go early to court. Do you not feel that the first and only reward I shall ask will be the life of your Christophe? Surely at such a moment Queen Mary can deny me nothing.”

“Alas! my friend,” returned Lecamus, “the little king has refused the pardon of the Prince de Conde to the princess. Do not kill your religion by saving the life of a man who ought to die.”

“Do not you meddle with God’s ordering of the future!” cried Pare. “Honest men can have but one motto: Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra!—do thy duty, come what will. That is what I did at the siege of Calais when I put my foot on the face of the Duc de Guise,—I ran the risk of being strangled by his friends and his servants; but to-day I am surgeon to the king; moreover I am of the Reformed religion; and yet the Guises are my friends. I shall save the king,” cried the surgeon, with the sacred enthusiasm of a conviction bestowed by genius, “and God will save France!”

A knock was heard on the street door and presently one of Pare’s servants gave a paper to Lecamus, who read aloud these terrifying words:—

Ambroise and Lecamus looked at each other with an expression of the deepest horror.

“I will go and see it for myself,” said the furrier.

No sooner was he in the open street than Ruggiero took his arm and asked by what means Ambroise Pare proposed to save the king. Fearing some trickery, the old man, instead of answering, replied that he wished to go and see the scaffold. The astrologer accompanied him to the place des Recollets, and there, truly enough, they found the carpenters putting up the horrible framework by torchlight.

“Hey, my friend,” said Lecamus to one of the men, “what are you doing here at this time of night?”

“We are preparing for the hanging of heretics, as the blood-letting at Amboise didn’t cure them,” said a young Recollet who was superintending the work.

“Monseigneur the cardinal is very right,” said Ruggiero, prudently; “but in my country we do better.”

“What do you do?” said the young priest.

“We burn them.”

Lecamus was forced to lean on the astrologer’s arm, for his legs gave way beneath him; he thought it probable that on the morrow his son would hang from one of those gibbets. The poor old man was thrust between two sciences, astrology and surgery, both of which promised him the life of his son, for whom in all probability that scaffold was now erecting. In the trouble and distress of his mind, the Florentine was able to knead him like dough.

“Well, my worthy dealer in minever, what do you say now to the Lorraine jokes?” whispered Ruggiero.

“Alas! you know I would give my skin if that of my son were safe and sound.”

“That is talking like your trade,” said the Italian; “but explain to me the operation which Ambroise means to perform upon the king, and in return I will promise you the life of your son.”

“Faithfully?” exclaimed the old furrier.

“Shall I swear it to you?” said Ruggiero.

Thereupon the poor old man repeated his conversation with Ambroise Pare to the astrologer, who, the moment that the secret of the great surgeon was divulged to him, left the poor father abruptly in the street in utter despair.

“What the devil does he mean, that miscreant?” cried Lecamus, as he watched Ruggiero hurrying with rapid steps to the place de l’Estape.

Lecamus was ignorant of the terrible scene that was taking place around the royal bed, where the imminent danger of the king’s death and the consequent loss of power to the Guises had caused the hasty erection of the scaffold for the Prince de Conde, whose sentence had been pronounced, as it were by default,—the execution of it being delayed by the king’s illness.

Absolutely no one but the persons on duty were in the halls, staircases, and courtyard of the royal residence, Le Bailliage. The crowd of courtiers were flocking to the house of the king of Navarre, on whom the regency would devolve on the death of the king, according to the laws of the kingdom. The French nobility, alarmed by the audacity of the Guises, felt the need of rallying around the chief of the younger branch, when, ignorant of the queen-mother’s Italian policy, they saw her the apparent slave of the duke and cardinal. Antoine de Bourbon, faithful to his secret agreement with Catherine, was bound not to renounce the regency in her favor until the States-general had declared for it.

The solitude in which the king’s house was left had a powerful effect on the mind of the Duc de Guise when, on his return from an inspection, made by way of precaution through the city, he found no one there but the friends who were attached exclusively to his own fortunes. The chamber in which was the king’s bed adjoined the great hall of the Bailliage. It was at that period panelled in oak. The ceiling, composed of long, narrow boards carefully joined and painted, was covered with blue arabesques on a gold ground, a part of which being torn down about fifty years ago was instantly purchased by a lover of antiquities. This room, hung with tapestry, the floor being covered with a carpet, was so dark and gloomy that the torches threw scarcely any light. The vast four-post bedstead with its silken curtains was like a tomb. Beside her husband, close to his pillow, sat Mary Stuart, and near her the Cardinal de Lorraine. Catherine was seated in a chair at a little distance. The famous Jean Chapelain, the physician on duty (who was afterwards chief physician to Charles IX.) was standing before the fireplace. The deepest silence reigned. The young king, pale and shrunken, lay as if buried in his sheets, his pinched little face scarcely showing on the pillow. The Duchesse de Guise, sitting on a stool, attended Queen Mary, while on the other side, near Catherine, in the recess of a window, Madame de Fiesque stood watching the gestures and looks of the queen-mother; for she knew the dangers of her position.

In the hall, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Monsieur de Cypierre, governor of the Duc d’Orleans and now appointed governor of the town, occupied one corner of the fireplace with the two Gondis. Cardinal de Tournon, who in this crisis espoused the interests of the queen-mother on finding himself treated as an inferior by the Cardinal de Lorraine, of whom he was certainly the ecclesiastical equal, talked in a low voice to the Gondis. The marshals de Vieilleville and Saint-Andre and the keeper of the seals, who presided at the States-general, were talking together in a whisper of the dangers to which the Guises were exposed.

The lieutenant-general of the kingdom crossed the room on his entrance, casting a rapid glance about him, and bowed to the Duc d’Orleans whom he saw there.

“Monseigneur,” he said, “this will teach you to know men. The Catholic nobility of the kingdom have gone to pay court to a heretic prince, believing that the States-general will give the regency to the heirs of a traitor who long detained in prison your illustrious grandfather.”

Then having said these words, which were destined to plough a furrow in the heart of the young prince, he passed into the bedroom, where the king was not so much asleep as plunged in a heavy torpor. The Duc de Guise was usually able to correct the sinister aspect of his scarred face by an affable and pleasing manner, but on this occasion, when he saw the instrument of his power breaking in his very hands, he was unable to force a smile. The cardinal, whose civil courage was equal to his brother’s military daring, advanced a few steps to meet him.

“Robertet thinks that little Pinard is sold to the queen-mother,” he whispered, leading the duke into the hall; “they are using him to work upon the members of the States-general.”

“Well, what does it signify if we are betrayed by a secretary when all else betrays us?” cried the lieutenant-general. “The town is for the Reformation, and we are on the eve of a revolt. Yes! the Wasps are discontented”; he continued, giving the Orleans people their nickname; “and if Pare does not save the king we shall have a terrible uprising. Before long we shall be forced to besiege Orleans, which is nothing but a bog of Huguenots.”

“I have been watching that Italian woman,” said the cardinal, “as she sits there with absolute insensibility. She is watching and waiting, God forgive her! for the death of her son; and I ask myself whether we should not do a wise thing to arrest her at once, and also the king of Navarre.”

“It is already more than we want upon our hands to have the Prince de Conde in prison,” replied the duke.

The sound of a horseman riding in haste to the gate of the Bailliage echoed through the hall. The duke and cardinal went to the window, and by the light of the torches which were in the portico the duke recognized on the rider’s hat the famous Lorraine cross, which the cardinal had lately ordered his partisans to wear. He sent an officer of the guard, who was stationed in the antechamber, to give entrance to the new-comer; and went himself, followed by his brother, to meet him on the landing.

“What is it, my dear Simeuse?” asked the duke, with that charm of manner which he always displayed to military men, as soon as he recognized the governor of Gien.

“The Connetable has reached Pithiviers; he left Ecouen with two thousand cavalry and one hundred nobles.”

“With their suites?”

“Yes, monseigneur,” replied Simeuse; “in all, two thousand six hundred men. Some say that Thore is behind them with a body of infantry. If the Connetable delays awhile, expecting his son, you still have time to repulse him.”

“Is that all you know? Are the reasons of this sudden call to arms made known?”

“Montmorency talks as little as he writes; go you and meet him, brother, while I prepare to welcome him with the head of his nephew,” said the cardinal, giving orders that Robertet be sent to him at once.

“Vieilleville!” cried the duke to the marechal, who came immediately. “The Connetable has the audacity to come here under arms; if I go to meet him will you be responsible to hold the town?”

“As soon as you leave it the burghers will fly to arms; and who can answer for the result of an affair between cavalry and citizens in these narrow streets?” replied the marechal.

“Monseigneur,” said Robertet, rushing hastily up the stairs, “the Chancelier de l’Hopital is at the gate and asks to enter; are we to let him in?”

“Yes, open the gate,” answered the cardinal. “Connetable and chancelier together would be dangerous; we must separate them. We have been boldly tricked by the queen-mother into choosing l’Hopital as chancellor.”

Robertet nodded to a captain of the guard, who awaited an answer at the foot of the staircase; then he turned round quickly to receive the orders of the cardinal.

“Monseigneur, I take the liberty,” he said, making one last effort, “to point out that the sentence should be approved by the king in council. If you violate the law on a prince of the blood, it will not be respected for either a cardinal or a Duc de Guise.”

“Pinard has upset your mind, Robertet,” said the cardinal, sternly. “Do you not know that the king signed the order of execution the day he was about to leave Orleans, in order that the sentence might be carried out in his absence?”

The lieutenant-general listened to this discussion without a word, but he took his brother by the arm and led him into a corner of the hall.

“Undoubtedly,” he said, “the heirs of Charlemagne have the right to recover the crown which was usurped from their house by Hugh Capet; but can they do it? The pear is not yet ripe. Our nephew is dying, and the whole court has gone over to the king of Navarre.”

“The king’s heart failed him, or the Bearnais would have been stabbed before now,” said the cardinal; “and we could easily have disposed of the Valois children.”

“We are very ill-placed here,” said the duke; “the rebellion of the town will be supported by the States-general. L’Hopital, whom we protected while the queen-mother opposed his appointment, is to-day against us, and yet it is all-important that we should have the justiciary with us. Catherine has too many supporters at the present time; we cannot send her back to Italy. Besides, there are still three Valois princes—”

“She is no longer a mother, she is all queen,” said the cardinal. “In my opinion, this is the moment to make an end of her. Vigor, and more and more vigor! that’s my prescription!” he cried.

So saying, the cardinal returned to the king’s chamber, followed by the duke. The priest went straight to the queen-mother.

“The papers of Lasagne, the secretary of the Prince de Conde, have been communicated to you, and you now know that the Bourbons are endeavoring to dethrone your son.”

“I know all that,” said Catherine.

“Well, then, will you give orders to arrest the king of Navarre?”

“There is,” she said with dignity, “a lieutenant-general of the kingdom.”

At this instant Francois II. groaned piteously, complaining aloud of the terrible pains in his ear. The physician left the fireplace where he was warming himself, and went to the bedside to examine the king’s head.

“Well, monsieur?” said the Duc de Guise, interrogatively.

“I dare not take upon myself to apply a blister to draw the abscess. Maitre Ambroise has promised to save the king’s life by an operation, and I might thwart it.”

“Let us postpone the treatment till to-morrow morning,” said Catherine, coldly, “and order all the physicians to be present; for we all know the calumnies to which the death of kings gives rise.”

She went to her son and kissed his hand; then she withdrew to her own apartments.

“With what composure that audacious daughter of a shop-keeper alluded to the death of the dauphin, poisoned by Montecuculi, one of her own Italian followers!” said Mary Stuart.

“Mary!” cried the little king, “my grandfather never doubted her innocence.”

“Can we prevent that woman from coming here to-morrow?” said the queen to her uncles in a low voice.

“What will become of us if the king dies?” returned the cardinal, in a whisper. “Catherine will shovel us all into his grave.”

Thus the question was plainly put between Catherine de’ Medici and the house of Lorraine during that fatal night. The arrival of the Connetable de Montmorency and the Chancelier de l’Hopital were distinct indications of rebellion; the morning of the next day would therefore be decisive.