faces closely, as if he wished to learn something about us before
he spoke.

"News!" I answered brusquely, being both tired, and as I had
told him, hungry. "We have heard none, and the best you can give
us will be that our supper is ready to be served."

But even this snub did not check his eagerness to tell his news.
"The Admiral de Coligny," he said, breathlessly, "you have not
heard what has happened to him?"

"To the admiral? No, what?" I inquired rapidly. I was
interested at last.

For a moment let me digress. The few of my age will remember,
and the many younger will have been told, that at this time the
Italian queen-mother was the ruling power in France. It was
Catharine de' Medici's first object to maintain her influence
over Charles the Ninth--her son; who, ricketty, weak, and
passionate, was already doomed to an early grave. Her second, to
support the royal power by balancing the extreme Catholics
against the Huguenots. For the latter purpose she would coquet
first with one party, then with the other. At the present moment
she had committed herself more deeply than was her wont to the
Huguenots. Their leaders, the Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the
King of Navarre, and the Prince of Conde, were supposed to be
high in favour, while the chiefs of the other party, the Duke of
Guise, and the two Cardinals of his house, the Cardinal of
Lorraine and the Cardinal of Guise, were in disgrace; which, as
it seemed, even their friend at court, the queen's favourite son,