A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 139: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XV. MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE BASSOMPIERRE, On the evening of the unfortunate duel at the Green Dragon, there had taken place a stormy scene at the H6tel de Bassompierre, the participants being Mademoi- selle Gabrielle de Vrissac and her guardians Vicomte Hector de Vrissac and the Duchess de Bassompierre. Since the feast of Saint Bartholomew, the maid of honor’s duties at the Louvre had been slight. There were no longer fétes and merrymaking. The King and Queen of Navarre were in retirement, although it can well be imagined that, after the betrayal of his party and his own narrow escape from death, the fertile brain of Henri was not idle in plotting and planning for his own ultimate success, The court of France was no less gloomy. The king thought no longer of tennis, and although what the gueen-mother had called “the enemies of himself and his kingdom” had been summarily dealt with and the King of Navarre himself forced to accept the mass, Charles, weak and puerile, was in a state of abject terror. He feared everybody and trusted no one, hiding in his closet, surrounded by armed men, bathed in the per- spiration of fear and covering his face at night, declaring that the air was full of the spirits of the restless dead. The days succeeding the massacre had been terrible ones for Mademoiselle de Vrissac, alternating as she did GComichoo S (E@)