map, which she proceeded to examine, with the assistance of Montmorency. Whilst they are thus engaged we will take the opportunity to say something of the two royal personages present. Charles IX. was not yet fourteen years old, tall in stature, strongly but not gracefully built, and with a countenance of energetic expression, but fierce and unrefined. The poor lad, invested at so early an age with unbounded authority, appears to have been naturally of a violent temper, with high animal spirits. His great passion was the chase, and he also showed considerable taste for letters. But, kept in subjection to the will of his mother, and tutored by her to suspect and dissimulate, his natural character was vitiated, and he suffered himself to continue, to the time of his death, the passive instrument of her ambition and cruelty. A remarkable anecdote is told of him, which seems to prove that better things might have been expected of him, had his education been in different hands. When but a youth, having perceived that after drinking wine he was no longer master of himself, he swore never to use it again; and he kept his oath. What might not have been expected from a prince gifted with such powers of self-control, had he been judiciously trained? At the time of which we are speaking, the queen mother was in the decline of her beauty, though she still retained some remnants of those charms which adorned her in youth. She was clad in the black robes of her widowhood, which it was her fancy to persist in wearing long after the usual period; her hair was completely hidden beneath the angular white cap we see in the pictures of that day, and her strongly marked features were softened by the shade of a grey gauze veil. Her eyebrows were dark, and her eyes, large and brilliant, had a restless severity in their expression which inspired fear and distrust. Her complexion was olive, and her figure tall and large, her movements full of grace and majesty, while an air of command was visible in every gesture. As she spoke now, the tones of her voice were soft and musical, for it was her wish to please; but, when angry passions agitated her bosom, they became dissonant, harsh, and startling.