"Did he know what a position I am in?" asked the Queen calmly. "Pretty nearly. He thinks you made a dupe's bargain when, on the death of the late King, you accepted for your share the fragments saved from the ruin of Madame Diane. Messieurs de Guise thought they had paid their debt to the Queen by gratifying the woman." "Yes," said Catherine, looking at the two Gondis, "I made a great mistake there." "A mistake the gods might make!" replied Charles de Gondi. "Gentlemen," said the Queen, "if I openly take up the cause of the Reformers, I shall be the slave of a party." "Madame," said Chiverni eagerly, "I entirely agree with you. You must make use of them, but not let them make use of you." "Although, for the moment, your strength lies there," said Charles de Gondi, "we must not deceive ourselves; success and failure are equally dangerous!" "I know it," said the Queen. "One false move will be a pretext eagerly seized by the Guises to sweep me off the board!" "A Pope's niece, the mother of four Valois, the Queen of France, the widow of the most ardent persecutor of the Huguenots, an Italian and a Catholic, the aunt of Leo X.,--can you form an alliance with the Reformation?" asked Charles de Gondi. "On the other hand," Albert replied, "is not seconding the Guises consenting to usurpation? You have to deal with a race that looks to the struggle between the Church and the Reformation to give them a crown for the taking. You may avail yourself of Huguenot help without abjuring the Faith." "Remember, madame, that your family, which ought to be wholly devoted to the King of France, is at this moment in the service of the King of Spain," said Chiverni. "And it would go over to the Reformation to-morrow if the Reformation could make the Duke of Florence King!" "I am very well inclined to give the Huguenots a helping hand for a time," said Catherine, "were it only to be revenged on that soldier, that priest, and that woman!" And with an Italian glance, her eye turned on the Duke and the Cardinal, and then to the upper rooms of the château where her son lived and Mary Stuart. "Those three snatched the reins of government from my hands," she went on, "when I had waited for them long enough while that old woman held them in my place." She jerked her head in the direction of Chenonceaux, the château she had just exchanged for Chaumont with Diane de Poitiers. "_Ma_," she said in Italian, "it would seem that these gentry of the Geneva bands have not wit enough to apply to me!--On my honor, I cannot go to meet them! And not one of you would dare to carry them a message." She stamped her foot. "I hoped you might have met the hunchback at Écouen," she said to Chiverni. "He has brains." "He was there, madame," replied Chiverni, "but he could not induce the Connétable to join him. Monsieur de Montmorency would be glad enough to overthrow the Guises, who obtained his dismissal; but he will have nothing to do with heresy."