Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/116

98 shone everywhere in a maze of scarlet and gold, brown and silver, purple and white.

Here the historical Amanda revelled, and quenched the meek old guide with a burst of information which caused him to stare humbly at "the mad English."

"Regardez, my dears, the chamber and oratory of Catherine de Medicis, who here plotted the death of the Due de Guise. This is the cabinet of her son, Henri III., where he gave the daggers to the gentlemen who were to rid him of his enemy, the hero of the barricades. This is the Salle des Gardes, where Guise was leaning on the chimney-piece when summoned to the king. This is the little room at the entrance of which he was set upon in the act of lifting the drapery, and stabbed with forty wounds."

"Ow! how horrid!" gasped Matilda, staring about as if she saw the sanguinary gentlemen approaching.

"So interesting! Do go on!" cried Lavinia, who was fond of woe, and enjoyed horrors. "This is the hall where the body lay for two hours, covered with a cloak and a cross of straw on the breast," cut in Amanda, as the guide opened his