Julien was extremely astonished that these words did not supply him with the key. His curiosity and his expectation of a tragic interest which would be in such harmony with his own character gave his eyes that brilliance which the teller of a story likes to see so much in the person who is listening to him. The academician was delighted at finding a virgin ear, and narrated at length to Julien how Boniface de la Mole, the handsomest young man of this century together with Annibal de Coconasso, his friend, a gentleman of Piedmont, had been beheaded on the 30th April, 1574. La Mole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite of Navarre and "observe," continued the academician, "that mademoiselle de La Mole's full name is Mathilde Marguerite. La Mole was at the same time a favourite of the Duke d'Alençon and the intimate friend of his mistress's husband, the King of Navarre, subsequently Henri IV. On Shrove Tuesday of that year 1574, the court happened to be at St. Germain with the poor king Charles IX. who was dying. La Mole wished to rescue his friends the princes, whom Queen Catherine of Medici was keeping prisoner in her Court. He advanced two hundred cavalry under the walls of St. Germain; the Duke d'Alençon was frightened and La Mole was thrown to the executioner. "But the thing which affects mademoiselle Mathilde, and what she has admitted to me herself seven or eight years ago when she was twelve, is a head! a head!----and the academician lifted up his eyes to the heavens. What struck her in this political catastrophe, was the hiding of Queen Marguerite de Navarre in a house in the place de Grève and her then asking for her lover's head. At midnight on the following day she took that head in her carriage and went and buried it herself in a chapel at the foot of the hill at Montmartre." "Impossible?" cried Julien really moved. "Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, he does not bother one whit about this ancient history, and never wears mourning on the thirtieth of April. It is since the time of this celebrated execution and in order to recall the intimate friendship of La Mole for the said Coconasso, who Italian that he was, bore the name of Annibal that all the men of that family bear that name. And," added the academician lowering his voice, "this Coconasso was, according to Charles IX. himself, one of the cruellest assassins of the twenty-fourth August, 1572. But how is it possible, my dear Sorel, that you should be ignorant of these things--you who take your meals with the family." "So that is why mademoiselle de la Mole twice called her brother Annibal at dinner. I thought I had heard wrong." "It was a reproach. It is strange that the marquise should allow such follies. The husband of that great girl will have a fine time of it."