A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 177: 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, 173 advancing into the room, with a puzzled look upon her lovely. face. Before Catherine could check her, the duchess had hastily stepped forward and extended her hands in supplication. “Then you will use your influence with the king,” she cried, “to grant my petition.” | “Your petition?” said Marguerite, understanding the situation of affairs pretty clearly. “Yes, your Majesty, I am here to ask the punish- ment of my son’s murderer.” “Murderer! It was a fair duel, madame.” “A fair duel!” cried the duchess. “A duel witha boy like that!” “The King of Navarre is satisfied that the Chevalier de Puycadére was not to blame, or he would not have asked the king’s clemency.” “And I? Have I no rights?” began the duchess pas- sionately, but the queen-mother laid a restraining hand upon her arm. , “Be patient! Leave it to me,” she said, in a low voice. Then, turning to the king, who was the picture of uneasiness, she remarked quietly: “Your Majesty will not ce this distressed mother the just punishment she exacts.’ Before the king could reply, Marguerite de Valois, who, whatever her faults might be, was ever loyal to her friends, and who was thinking now of her favorite maid of honor, interposed: ‘“‘My brother has given his royal word to my husband that the life of Monsieur de Puycadére should be spared.” The queen-mother bit her thin lips with rage. “Your husband,” she said, addressing Marguerite Connieloooks (S(@) LA