"
"What plots?"
"Some think she plots with the Duke of Guise, who cannot wait to rule
France until Catherine's sons are both dead,--but Catherine will make
him wait. Others believe that she plots with her Huguenot husband, the
King of Navarre, to join him; and that the King keeps her here virtually
a prisoner, lest her departure might be taken as a concession to the
Huguenots; and, lastly and chiefly, they aver that she plots with her
brother Anjou, to help him to join the Huguenots and malcontents as
their leader."
"This is very interesting, M. de Rilly; but, pardon me, is it safe to say
these things openly at court? I am fresh from the country, and anxious
not to blunder."
"It is safe for me, because I am nobody at all, and, moreover, I say
whatever is in my thoughts, and am looked upon as a rattlebrain, and not
taken seriously. But it would not be safe for some. There comes the Queen
of Navarre now. She and her ladies have been walking in their garden."
A number of ladies were entering the gallery from a side stairway.
Marguerite de Valois, who ought to have been with her husband, the King
of Navarre, at his little court at Nerac, remained instead at the court
of France, to be its greatest ornament. She was, alas, its greatest
scandal, also. But I admired her none the less for that, as she stood
there, erect among her women, full of color and grace.
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