Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/117

Rh mouth. "Here the king came to look upon the corpse of the once mighty Henri le Balafré, and spurned it with his foot, saying,—I shall not translate it for you, Mat,—'Je ne le croyais pas aussi grand,' and then ordered it to be burnt, and the ashes cast into the river. Remember the date, I implore you, December 23, 1588."

As Amanda paused for breath the little man took the word, and rattled off a jumble of facts and fictions about the window from which Marie de Medicis lowered herself when imprisoned here by her dutiful son, Louis XIII.

"I wish the entire lot had been tossed out after her, for I do think kings and queens are a set of rascals," cried Mat, scandalized by the royal iniquities to which she had been listening, till the hair stood erect upon her innocent head.

The Salle des Etats was being prepared for the trial of the men who had lately attempted the Emperor's life, and a most theatrical display of justice was to be presented to the public. The richly carved stair-case, with Francis the First's salamanders squirming up and down it, was a relic worth seeing; but the parched pilgrims found the