Henry M. Baird · 261 of 379

CHAPTER X · Danger of the King of Navarre.

Navarre was himself in almost equal danger. An attempt to poison him was frustrated by its timely revelation; a plot to assassinate him on leaving the king's residence, by the strength of his body-guard. A still more atrocious scheme was concocted. Francis was to stab his cousin of Navarre with his dagger, leaving his attendants to despatch him with their swords. Such murderous projects can rarely be kept secret. Even Catharine de' Medici is said to have attempted to dissuade Antoine from going to the palace by warning him of the danger he would incur. At the door of the king's chamber a friendly hand interposed, and a friendly voice asked: "Sire, whither are you going to your ruin?" But the prince, with a resolution which it had been well had he manifested at an earlier period, paused only a moment to say to his faithful Renty: "I am going to the spot where a conspiracy has been entered into to take my life.... If it please God, He will save me; but, if I die, I entreat you, by the fidelity I have ever known in you, ... to carry the shirt I wear, all covered with blood, to my wife and son, and to conjure my wife, by the great love she has always borne me, and by her duty (since my son is not yet old enough to avenge my death), to send it, torn by the dagger, and bloody, to the foreign princes of Christendom, that they may avenge my death, so cruel and treacherous." These gloomy forebodings were not destined to be realized. Francis's anger evaporated in words, or was restrained by his mother's secret injunctions, and Antoine of Navarre was suffered to go away unharmed. The duke and cardinal, who witnessed the scene from the recess of a window, are said to have muttered half audibly as they left the room, "That is the most cowardly heart that ever was!"