all the orations of the crowd:--I am an usurper!"

"Be not unjust towards yourself, my lord, and bear in mind that if you
did not abdicate in favour of the rightful heir, it was because you
wished to save the people from the worst misfortunes. Moreover,"
continued the queen, with that air of profound conviction that an
unanswerable argument inspires, "you have remained king by the consent
and authority of our Holy Father the sovereign pontiff, who disposes of
the throne as a fief belonging to the Church."

"I have long quieted my scruples thus," replied the dying man, "and
the pope's authority has kept me silent; but whatever security one may
pretend to feel in one's lifetime, there yet comes a dreadful solemn
hour when all illusions needs must vanish: this hour for me has come,
and now I must appear before God, the one unfailing judge."

"If His justice cannot fail, is not His mercy infinite?" pursued the
queen, with the glow of sacred inspiration. "Even if there were good
reason for the fear that has shaken your soul, what fault could not be
effaced by a repentance so noble? Have you not repaired the wrong you
may have done your nephew Carobert, by bringing his younger son Andre
to your kingdom and marrying him to Joan, your poor Charles's elder
daughter? Will not they inherit your crown?"

"Alas!" cried Robert, with a deep sigh, "God is punishing me perhaps for
thinking too late of this just reparation. O my good and noble Sandra,
you touch a chord which vibrates sadly in my heart, and you
anticipate the unhappy confidence I was about to make. I feel a gloomy
presentiment--and in the hour of death presentiment is prophecy--that
the two sons of my nephew, Louis, who has been King of Hungary since