Now that the bells were ringing for the dying moments of the good king,
every mind was full of these prophetic words: women prayed fervently to
God; men from all parts of the town bent their steps towards the royal
palace to get the earliest and most authentic news, and after waiting
some moments, passed in exchanging sad reflections, were obliged to
return as they had come, since nothing that went on in the privacy of
the family found its way outside--the castle was plunged in complete
darkness, the drawbridge was raised as usual, and the guards were at
their post.

Yet if our readers care to be present at the death of the nephew of
Saint Louis and the grandson of Charles of Anjou, we may conduct them
into the chamber of the dying man. An alabaster lamp suspended from the
ceiling serves to light the vast and sombre room, with walls draped in
black velvet sewn with golden fleur-de-lys. Near the wall which faces
the two entrance doors that at this moment are both shut close, there
stands beneath a brocaded canopy an ebony bed, supported on four twisted
columns carved with symbolic figures. The king, after a struggle with a
violent paroxysm, has fallen swooning in the arms of his confessor and
his doctor, who each hold one of his dying hands, feeling his pulse
anxiously and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the foot of the bed
stands a woman about fifty years of age, her hands clasped, her eyes
raised to heaven, in an attitude of resigned grief: this woman is the
queen, No tears dim her eyes: her sunken cheek has that waxen yellow
tinge that one sees on the bodies of saints preserved by miracle. In
her look is that mingling of calm and suffering that points to a soul
at once tried by sorrow and imbued with religion. After the lapse of an
hour, while no movement had disturbed the profound silence which reigned
about the bed of death, the king trembled slightly; opened his eyes, and