“Why did you kill the assassin? We might have tortured him, and discovered his accomplices,” says M. d’O, while they await the messenger whom they had despatched. “I did not kill him,” answered the Comte d’Auvergne. The King was seated when he entered, and, taking the wretch’s papers in his hands, was busy reading them. M. Clermont and I were present, but had retired a little to leave his Majesty more at liberty. As he rose from his seat and was addressing the monk, the traitor drew a dagger from his sleeve and plunged it into the King’s stomach. The King cried out, “Kill him--he has killed me!” and, drawing forth the dagger from the wound, gave two or three cuts at the assassin, and then fell. We rushed to his aid, and smote the fellow, who was unarmed, right and left. At the noise, the doors burst open, and the gentlemen and pages in their rage finished him with a hundred blows. Seeing that he was dead, I ordered him to be stripped and thrown out of the window, in order to be recognised if possible.” “What does it matter who recognises him?” answers M. d’O. “Have the papers that he showed the King disappeared also?” Before the Count could reply the surgeon appears. He desires that every one shall be turned out of the King’s bedroom whilst he examines him. He pronounces the wound mortal; the dagger was poisoned. Henry, after great anguish, expires in a few hours. The letters were forgeries. The body of Jacques Clément, having first been drawn by four horses through the streets of Saint-Cloud, is burned by the common hangman. He is much lauded, however, at Rome, where Sixtus V. reigns as Pontiff; at Paris his effigy is placed upon the altars beside the Host. Meanwhile the King of Navarre is within his quarters at Meudon. His minister Sully lodges a little way down the hill, in the house of a man called Sauvat. Sully is just sitting down to supper, when his secretary enters and desires him to go instantly to his master. Henry of Navarre tells him that an express has arrived from Saint-Cloud, and that the King is already dead, or dying. “Sully,” he says, “for what I know, I may be at this very instance King of France. Yet, who will support me? Half my army will desert if Henry be really dead. Not a prince of the blood--not a minister will stand by me. I am here, as it were, in the midst of an enemy’s country, with but a handful of followers. What is to be done?” “Stay where you are, Sire, is my advice,” answers Sully. “If you are, indeed, now King of France, remain with such as are faithful to you. A monarch should never fly. But let us go to Saint-Cloud and hear the truth.” “That is just what I desire,” answers Henry. “We will start as soon as our horses are saddled.”