Mary Stuart took the king's arm. Dayelle went out before them, whispering to the pages; one of whom (it was young Teligny, who afterwards perished so miserably during the Saint-Bartholomew) cried out:--"The king!"
Hearing the words, the two soldiers of the guard presented arms, and the two pages went forward to the door of the Council-room through the lane of courtiers and that of the maids of honor of the two queens.
All the members of the Council then grouped themselves about the door of their chamber, which was not very far from the door to the staircase. The grand-master, the cardinal, and the chancellor advanced to meet the young sovereign, who smiled to several of the maids of honor and replied to the remarks of a few courtiers more privileged than the rest. But the queen, evidently impatient, drew Francois II.
as quickly as possible toward the Council-chamber. When the sound of arquebuses, dropping heavily on the floor, had announced the entrance of the couple, the pages replaced their caps upon their heads, and the private talk among the courtiers on the gravity of the matters now about to be discussed began again.
"They sent Chiverni to fetch the Connetable, but he has not come,"said one.
"There is not a single prince of the blood present," said another.
"The chancellor and Monsieur de Tournon looked anxious," remarked a third.
"The grand-master sent word to the keeper of the seals to be sure not to miss this Council; therefore you may be certain they will issue letters-patent.""Why does the queen-mother stay in her own apartments at such a time?""They'll cut out plenty of work for us," remarked Groslot to Cardinal de Chatillon.
In short, everybody had a word to say. Some went and came, in and out of the great hall; others hovered about the maids of honor of both queens, as if it might be possible to catch a few words through a wall three feet thick or through the double doors draped on each side with heavy curtains.
Seated at the upper end of a long table covered with blue velvet, which stood in the middle of the room, the king, near to whom the young queen was seated in an arm-chair, waited for his mother.
Robertet, the secretary, was mending pens. The two cardinals, the grand-master, the chancellor, the keeper of the seals, and all the rest of the council looked at the little king, wondering why he did not give them the usual order to sit down.
The two Lorrain princes attributed the queen-mother's absence to some trick of their niece. Incited presently by a significant glance, the audacious cardinal said to his Majesty:--"Is it the king's good pleasure to begin the council without waiting for Madame la reine-mere?"Francois II., without daring to answer directly, said: "Messieurs, be seated."The cardinal then explained succinctly the dangers of the situation.
This great political character, who showed extraordinary ability under these pressing circumstances, led up to the question of the lieutenancy of the kingdom in the midst of the deepest silence. The young king doubtless felt the tyranny that was being exercised over him; he knew that his mother had a deep sense of the rights of the Crown and was fully aware of the danger that threatened his power; he therefore replied to a positive question addressed to him by the cardinal by saying:--"We will wait for the queen, my mother."
Suddenly enlightened by the queen-mother's delay, Mary Stuart recalled, in a flash of thought, three circumstances which now struck her vividly; first, the bulk of the papers presented to her mother-in-law, which she had noticed, absorbed as she was,--for a woman who seems to see nothing is often a lynx; next, the place where Christophe had carried them to keep them separate from hers: "Why so?" she thought to herself; and thirdly, she remembered the cold, indifferent glance of the young man, which she suddenly attributed to the hatred of the Reformers to a niece of the Guises. A voice cried to her, "He may have been an emissary of the Huguenots!" Obeying, like all excitable natures, her first impulse, she exclaimed:--"I will go and fetch my mother myself!"
Then she left the room hurriedly, ran down the staircase, to the amazement of the courtiers and the ladies of honor, entered her mother-in-law's apartments, crossed the guard-room, opened the door of the chamber with the caution of a thief, glided like a shadow over the carpet, saw no one, and bethought her that she should surely surprise the queen-mother in that magnificent dressing-room which comes between the bedroom and the oratory. The arrangement of this oratory, to which the manners of that period gave a role in private life like that of the boudoirs of our day, can still be traced.
