"Oh, the Duke does not wish to join the Huguenots. All he desires is to
go to the Netherlands, where a throne awaits him if he will do a little
fighting for it."

"I fear he would rather revenge himself on the King for what he has had
to endure at court."

Presently Malerain left to go on duty at the Louvre, and soon I followed,
to take up my station in sight of the window where Mlle. d'Arency slept.
The night, which had set in, was very dark, and gusts of cold wind came
up from the Seine. The place where, in my infatuation and affectation, I
kept my lover's watch, was quite deserted. The Louvre loomed up gigantic
before me, the lights gleaming feebly in a few of its many windows,
serving less to relieve its sombre aspect than to suggest unknown, and,
perhaps, sinister doings within.

I laugh at myself now for having maintained those vigils by night beneath
a court lady's window; but you will presently see that, but for this
boyish folly, my body would have been sleeping in its grave these many
years past, and I should have never come to my greatest happiness.

Suddenly my attention was attracted to another window than that on which
I had fixed my gaze. This other window appertained to the apartments of
the King's sister, Queen Marguerite, and what caused me to transfer my
attention to it was the noise of its being opened. Then a head was thrust
out of it,--the small and graceful head of Marguerite herself. She looked
down at the moat beneath, and in either direction, and apparently saw no
one, I being quite in shadow; then she drew her head in.