Note 287 — Chapter IX

When the first violence of her emotion had subsided she sank into a seat, and with clasped hands and drooping head appeared to be absorbed in deep and bitter thought; for at intervals the blood mounted to her brow and burned there for a time, after which she again became pale as ashes, and as motionless as a corpse. She was still in this attitude when one of her confidential servants imprudently approached her, and inquired how the melancholy event was to be communicated to the Maréchale d'Ancre? "Perhaps," he incautiously suggested, "your Majesty will condescend to acquaint her with it yourself." Marie de Medicis suddenly raised her hand, swept back her dishevelled hair from her face, and fixing her flashing eyes upon the officious gentleman, passionately replied, "I have other things to attend to at this moment. If no one can tell the Maréchale that her husband has been killed, let them sing it to her. Let me never again hear the name of those people. I told them long ago that they would do right to return to Italy. Yes," she continued, more particularly addressing the Dowager Duchess of Guise, the Princesse de Conti, and the other ladies who were standing near her, "they have at last accomplished my ruin. I foresaw it; I warned them, but they would not be convinced. I told Concini that he had no time to lose, but with his habitual self-sufficiency he declared repeatedly that the King became more courteous to him every day. I was not deceived, however; I charged him not to trust to appearances, for that Louis never said all he thought; he disregarded my words, and he has now involved me in his own destruction." [287]