"Queen Catherine?" I exclaimed, incredulously, half refusing to see, in
that placid matron, the ceaseless plotter, the woman accused of poisoning
and all manner of bloodshed, whom the name represented.

"Catherine de Medici," said De Rilly, evidently finding it a pleasure to
instruct a newcomer as to the personages and mysteries of the court. "She
who preserves the royal power in France at this moment."

"She does not look as I have imagined her," I said.

"One would not suppose," said De Rilly, "that behind that serene
countenance goes on the mental activity necessary to keep the throne in
possession of her favorite son, who spends fortunes on his minions, taxes
his subjects to the utmost, and disgusts them with his eccentric piety
and peculiar vices."

"Dare one say such things in the very palace of that King?"

"Why not say what every one knows? It is what people say in hidden
places that is dangerous."

"I wonder what is passing in the Queen-mother's mind at this moment," I
said, as Catherine turned into the corridor leading to Anjou's
apartments.

In the light of subsequent events, I can now give a better answer to that
query than De Rilly, himself, could have given then. Catherine had to use
her wits to check the deep designs of Henri, Duke of Guise, who was
biding his time to claim the throne as the descendant of Charlemagne, and