Ay! I can picture it all--the hopes, the fears, and then the dread certainty. Then comes the struggle between the love of a mother and the pride of race. It is a choice between unspeakable shame and death that hides all things. The Queen-Mother and René are alone together with the King. He sleeps, and the lights that ever blaze within the room burn on that red splash, the mark of the Unclean. The eyes of Catherine meet those of René, and the man of science knows that the choice has been made--that pride has conquered love. “It must be now,” she says, and then, with head held high, and dry, burning eyes, the Medicis steps from the room. And René was alone with his King. What happened then will never be known until the last great trumpet blares out its call, and you and I, my friends, stand at God’s Throne to answer for our souls; but when the morning came, Charles the Ninth was King of France. All this was to happen in a few days, nay, in a few hours; but at the moment, in the hearts of those who stood around, had sprung up a hope--the fever was gone--the King would live. We stepped forward and knelt by the bedside, and the thin hand of the boy wavered over us as he asked: “Are these my friends come back?” Then Catherine bent down and whispered in his ear, and Francis spoke again. “Pardon them! I would have pardoned them all. There was Castelnau, who used to play with me when I was a boy. There was Ste. Marie, who taught me to ride. There is Condé, always gay and laughing. And I--I have not laughed for months.” He stopped for a moment, and went on, “But my cousin of Guise and the Cardinal will not let me pardon any one--they forbid it,” he added weakly. “My son,” said the Medicis, “are you not King of France?” A faint flush spread over the ivory face, the pale lips drew themselves together obstinately, and he muttered to himself: “Yes! Yes! I am King,” and then, in a louder tone, “I will be King for once--shall I not, Marie?” and he turned to his wife. And the most beautiful lips in the world pleaded for us, and put courage into the heart of the King; and, boy as he was, there seemed to come upon him all the dignity of his high estate, as he stretched out his hand again to us. “I pardon you the past, messieurs--I give you the King’s Peace--the peace that the King himself knows not.” Then we touched the thin hand with our lips, and, rising without a word, for there was something in the moment that took speech from us, stepped behind the group at the head of the bed, as the little King leaned back again on his pillows, all trace of the momentary strength in his face vanishing. Catherine turned toward us, as if about to give us the signal to go, when the King spoke again. “My mother,” he said, “am I going to die?” A look of pain came over the marble features of Catherine; she bent over the boy, as if to hide her features, and her voice was very low as she answered: “No, no, my son!” And the child had become a child once more.