But the Queen of
Navarre manifestly had no intention of following the three men. These now
clambered up the side of the moat, and the one who had been first down
turned and waved her a silent adieu, which she returned with a graceful
gesture of her partly bare arm. The three men then rapidly plunged into
one of the abutting streets and were gone. All this time I stood inactive
and unobserved.
Marguerite remained at the window to cast another look around. Suddenly,
from out the darkness at the base of the Louvre, as if risen from the
very earth at the bottom of the moat, sprang the figure of a man, who
started toward the guard-house as if his life depended on his speed.
Marguerite drew her head in at once with a movement of great alarm. An
instant later the rope was drawn up and the window closed.
Two conjectures came into my head, one after the other, each in a flash.
The one was that Marguerite had availed herself of the fraternal quarrel
that occupied the King's attention to plan an escape to her husband, King
Henri of Navarre, and that these three men had gone from a consultation
in her apartments to further the project. The other conjecture was that
they were but some of Monsieur's followers who had transgressed the new
rule, requiring their departure from the palace at nightfall, and had
taken this means of leaving to avoid discovery. If the former conjecture
embodied the truth, my sympathies were with the plot; for it little
pleased me that the wife of our Huguenot leader should remain at the
French court, a constant subject of scandalous gossip.
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