The gentleman wore a
black velvet doublet, and his attire, from his snowy ruff to his black
boots, was in the best condition. He had a frank, manly countenance that
invited address. At the turn of the road he saw me, and, taking me in at
a glance, he fell behind his lackeys that I might come up to him. He
greeted me courteously, and after he had spoken of the weather and the
promise of the sky, he mentioned, incidentally, that he was going to
Paris. I told him my own destination, and we came to talking of the
court. I perceived, from his remarks, that he was well acquainted there.
There was some talk of the quarrels between the King's favorites and
those of his brother, the Duke of Anjou; of the latter's sulkiness over
his treatment at the hands of the King; of the probabilities for and
against Anjou's leaving Paris and putting himself at the head of the
malcontent and Huguenot parties; of the friendship between Anjou and his
sister Marguerite, who remained at the Court of France while her husband,
Henri of Navarre, held his mimic Huguenot court in Bearn. Presently, the
name of the Duke of Guise came up.
Now we Huguenots held, and still hold, Henri de Guise to have been a
chief instigator of the event of St. Bartholomew's Night, in 1572.
Always I had in my mind the picture of Coligny, under whom my father had
fought, lying dead in his own courtyard, in the Rue de Bethizy, his
murder done under the direction of that same Henri, his body thrown from
his window into the court at Henri's orders, and there spurned by
Henri's foot.
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