A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 175: what you’re looking at

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

BY GRACE OF GOD, KING OF FRANCE, 171 ing up with a look of alarm upon his face. “This means # “Wait and see!” The time of waiting was not long. Ina very few minutes, the duchess was ushered into the royal pres- ence, pale as a ghost in her mourning robes, but her lips compressed in an expression of inexorable resolve. She advanced to where the king sat, with the queen- mother behind his chair, and bent her knee before her sovereign. “Rise, madame, rise,” said Charles graciously; “a De Bassompierre’s fidelity to the crown is known with- out empty ceremony.” “TI thank your Majesty,” said the duchess, raising herself to her full height and looking the king directly in the face, “and am glad to hear you accord the Bas- sompierres what is only their due. As a faithful sub- ject of my king, I am here to demand justice.” * Justice!” “ Ay, justice! Myson hasbeen slain. His murderer is in the Chatelet. I ask his head!” “In the Chatelet!” repeated the king in great agita- tion. “When was this? I have heard that he had escaped.” “For atime only. To-day he was arrested.” “The Chevalier de Puycadére.” “The Chevalier de Puycadére. A Huguenot, a here- tic, a murderer! Justice, sire, justice!” “The duchess is right, sire,” said Catherine de Medi- cis, in her clear, cold, unimpassioned voice, pressing her hand lightly on the shoulder of her son. “The man zs a heretic and a murderer, and should suffer the penalty of his crimes.” The king shook off his mother’s touch, and, with his Conmicloooks (¢@)