in the crime he had at least allowed others to commit; and it was not
an unfriendly witness who recorded that, the fever once upon him, for
an hour he had been less a man than a beast of prey. But,
exemplifying that exquisite fineness of cruelty proper to an ideal
tragedy, with the [133] work of his madness all around him, he awoke
sane next day, to remain so--aged at twenty-one--seeking for the few
months left him to forget himself in his old out-of-door amusements,
rending a consumptive bosom with the perpetual horn-blowing which
could never rouse again the gay morning of life.

"I have heard," says Brantome, of Elisabeth, Charles's queen, "that
on the Eve of Saint Bartholomew, she, having no knowledge of the
matter, went to rest at her accustomed hour, and, sleeping till the
morning, was told, as she arose, of the brave mystery then playing.
'Alas!' she cried; 'the king! my husband! does he know it?' 'Ay!
Madam,' they answered; 'the king himself has ordained it.' 'God!'
she cried; 'how is this? and what counsellors be they who have given
him this advice? O God, be pitiful! for unless Thou art pitiful I
fear this offence will never be pardoned unto him;' and asking for
her 'Hours,' suddenly betook herself to prayer, weeping."

Like the shrinking, childish Elisabeth, the Pope also wept at that
dubious service to his Church from one who was, after all, a Huguenot
in belief; and Huguenots themselves pitied his end.--"Ah! ces
pauvres morts! que j'ai eu un meschant conseil! Ah! ma nourrice! ma
mie, ma nourrice! que de sang, et que de meurtres!"

It was a peculiarity of the naturally devout [134] Gaston that,
habituated to yield himself to the poetic guidance of the Catholic
Church in her wonderful, year-long, dramatic version of the story of