Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

"But, sire, should it please Heaven to take you from us – and may you live long, I pray" – resumed Henry of Navarre, whilst the king shook his head – "it will be your mother who will claim the regency, until the return from Poland of your brother, Henry of Anjou. It will be hers probably to command!"

"When I bid you not trust yourself to her tender mercies," replied Charles, "think not I spoke as a child. My life is ebbing fast, I know, but my mind is clear. Give me that paper!" He pointed to a paper laid upon a table close by his side. "This is my last and binding command, which I shall now sign with my own hand," he continued, as Henry brought him the desired paper, and laid it upon his couch. "This declares, that, by my last will, I appoint you as Regent of this realm until the return of the King of Poland. The name is still in blank; for I would not that those who drew it up should know my purpose, and bring my mother clamouring to my side, to thwart my last wish by her reproaches. Give me a pen, Henry. Now, support me – so – in your arms. Where is now the paper? My sight is troubled; but I shall find strength to see and strength to trace that name."

Raised up in the arms of the King of Navarre, Charles took the pen placed in his hand, and laid it on the paper.

"When you are regent, Henry," he paused to say, "remove my mother from your court. It is I who bid you do it. She would hate you with a mortal hatred; for power is her only aim in this world, and for that she would forfeit her salvation in the next. Not a moment would your life be in safety. She would poison you, as she has poisoned her miserable son."

"Sire! retract those words!" said a voice close by the dying king.

Before the couch of her son stood Catherine de Medicis. Her face was cold and passionless as ever, although her dark eyes gleamed with unusual fire, and her pallid face was still more pale.

"What would you have with me, madam?" said Charles, shuddering, as she approached. "Have I not desired to be alone with my good brother Henry upon affairs of state?"

"Retract those words, sire!" pursued his mother, unheeding him. "You have brought against me the most awful accusation that malice can lay to the charge of a human being. Would you leave this world, if so it please the saints above, with so hideous a lie upon your lips? Sire! retract those words!"

"Leave me, woman! Leave me to die in peace!" said Charles, with an effort of energy, struggling with his weakness and the violence of his emotions. "Be you guilty of this deed, or be you not, may Heaven forgive you your misdeeds, as I pray it may forgive me mine."

"My son! my son!" cried Catherine, kneeling down by his side, whilst the tears, which were ever ready at her command, and might now have been natural tears of rage, rolled down her cheeks, "I cannot leave you thus, a victim to the most horrible suspicion. I may have erred against you, but it has been unconsciously. I have ever sought your honour and your glory, perhaps by means you now condemn; but I have acted, like a weak, fallible mortal, for the best. No – no – you really cannot entertain thoughts so terrible. It cannot be. This is the suggestion of my enemies – and my enemies are yours, my son." And, as she said these words, Catherine darted a cold, sharp look of rage at Henry of Navarre, who had risen, and now remained an unwilling spectator of so terrible a scene – a scene of the most fearful passions of the human heart between mother and son, and upon the bed of death. "No – no – you will retract your words. You will say you did not entertain that frightful thought."

As the Queen-mother spoke, her eyes were fixed upon the paper, which was to consign the regency to Henry of Navarre; and, in spite of the animation with which she addressed her son, it was evident that upon that paper her chief thoughts were directed.

"Madam!" said Charles faintly, raising himself with difficulty on one elbow, and struggling with internal pain – "you have received my last words of pardon. Let my last moments be undisturbed."

"Charles, Charles!" exclaimed his mother, wringing her hands. "Let me remove these horrible ideas from your mind. What shall I say? What shall I do? Can a son think thus of a mother who has ever loved him? Oh, no! – it is impossible. Your mind wandered. You did not think it."

"Enough, madam! – enough!" replied the King. "It was the passing fancy of a wandering brain, if you will have it so. It is gone now. I think of it no more. Now leave me."

"But, my son," persisted Catherine, "I have such secrets to reveal to you, as you alone may hear. They are necessary to the safety of the state – necessary to the salvation of your soul hereafter. I cannot, must not, leave you. It is my bounded duty to remain."

"The time is past, madam," gasped her son, "when I can listen to such matters. My moments are counted – and I have that to do that can brook no delay."

Catherine sprung up with a feeling of despair, and turned away for a moment.

"It is near noon," she muttered to herself. "And it was to be at noon, said the astrologer. Oh! a few minutes – but a few minutes" —

"My son," she continued aloud, again approaching the bed of the king, and having recourse once more to that importunity, which, in the latter days of his reign, was the only weapon with which she could contrive to work upon the mind of Charles, "but I have that to reveal which deeply affects the honour of our family. Would you that other ears should listen to our shame?"

"Aye, ever shame – ever blood – ever remorse!" murmured Charles, turning his head upon his pillow.

"Would you refuse the last request of her who is, after all, your mother?" exclaimed Catherine, with the well acted accent of extreme despair.

The king uttered not a word.

"Leave us, sir," said the Queen-mother, with an imperious sign of her hand to Henry of Navarre, upon seeing these symptoms of the wavering resolution of her son.

The young prince remained unmoved, to await the will of the dying king.

"Leave us, Henry," said the Monarch; "you will return to me anon. This is her last request – these are her last words. When she is gone, let me see you instantly."

Henry of Navarre shook his head with a look of mournful resignation, and then bowed and left the apartment.

"Now speak, madam," said the king, "and quickly. What would you reveal to me?"

"That Henry of Navarre conspires against your throne," commenced Catherine, rapidly; "that he has been proved to be in connexion with that sorcerer who has aimed at your life; that the chiefs of the accursed Huguenot party are concealed in Paris, awaiting but your death to place the crown upon his brow; that he also looks to this event to abjure once more the true Catholic faith, and return into the bosom of heresy; that by giving power into his hands, you endanger the safety of the state; that by committing the rule of the country to a Heretic and a Seceder, you endanger the safety of your own soul; that, by such a step, the honour of our House will be eternally lost; that in all the countries of Catholic Christendom, we shall be pointed at with the finger of scorn and shame."

"Madam, you have deceived me with words of equivocation to gain my ear," replied the king, mustering all the strength that still remained to him, "and you deceive me now."

"I deceive you not, my son," pursued Catherine, eagerly. "Each word that I pronounce is God's own truth. Could you then confide into the power of a base and lying Heretic, one who seeks your death, but to grasp himself the Crown, the government of a Catholic and a Christian country? Hear you not already the anathema of our holy father, the Pope, that curses even in the tomb that soul lost by a step so rash? See you not already our blessed Virgin, and all the saints of Heaven, turn from you their glorious faces, and refuse to look on one who has despised them, and set them at nought by a deed so unholy? Feel you not already the torture of that punishment to which the Heretic, and the aider and abettor of the Heretic, are eternally condemned? Have I deceived you when I said that you endanger the welfare of your own immortal soul?"

"But you err, madam," said her miserable son, shuddering at the picture thus placed before him, to work upon his mind in these last moments. "Henry is become a good and fervent Catholic."

"All is ready for his abjuration at the moment of your death," continued the Queen-mother. "To resume a powerful party among the Huguenots, he will renounce our religion. My son – my son – pause, reflect, before you thus sacrifice your own salvation, and throw your unhappy country beneath the Papal ban."

"Heaven aid me!" cried the miserable Charles. "On all sides darkness and despair, in this world and the next."

"Heaven shall aid you, my son," pursued his wily mother, "if you but trust the guidance of your kingdom to such hands as shall maintain it in the true religion. The paper that resigns your country to the hands of a regent, lies, I see, before you. Can you hesitate? Can you a moment doubt? Whose name should fill that space, where but just now you would have written the traitorous name of Henry of Navarre?"

"God guide my unhappy France!" sighed the king, turning his face away and closing his eyes. "In His hands I leave it."

Catherine smiled with a look of scorn, and then picking up the pen, which had fallen by the bedside, calmly fetched some ink from the table, and attempted to place the pen in her son's hand.

Before her purpose could be fulfilled, a noise was heard in the outer room. The voice of a woman clamoured loudly for admittance. Charles heard that voice, opened his eyes, and attempted to raise his head.

"Ah, it is she!" he cried, with choking voice. "At last! – at last! Let her come in."

Catherine de Medicis rose, for the purpose, probably, of opposing the order of her son; but before she could reach the door, an old woman, simply attired, and of a strange appearance and expression, had entered the room.

"What means this intrusion, and at such a moment?" exclaimed the Queen-mother.

"Perrotte!" stammered Charles. "Ah! thou art come at last to console and to forgive me."

Catherine clenched her teeth tightly together with rage; but she no longer attempted to oppose the entrance of the old woman.

The old Huguenot nurse advanced with solemn step into the room, and with a stern and troubled brow; but, on a sudden, a host of recollections seemed to crowd upon her mind at the sight of that emaciated form, and, hurrying to the side of the king, she flung herself down upon the couch and sobbed bitterly.

"Perrotte – my darling old Perrotte!" sobbed forth the dying king. "Art thou come then at last to thy poor nursling? Thou wast a mother to me, and yet thou couldst desert thy poor boy; but he deserved his lot. Perrotte! Perrotte! Thou knowest not what I have suffered since thou hast left me."

"My son," said Catherine, advancing, "is this a moment to bestow your tenderness upon a miserable woman like this? Greet her if you will, but bid her leave us."

"She was a mother to me – she" – continued Charles unheeding her, and, drawing forth his emaciated hand from beneath the coverlid, he held it forth towards the old woman, who lay stretched across his feet.

"Charlot," said the old woman, raising up her head with a haggard look, "they told me that thou wast dying; and I forgot all – all that thou hast done of evil – to see thee once more – to hear the words of repentance from thy own lips – to console and guide. They would have opposed my coming. They had placed guards about my door; but my Jocelyne, my grandchild, found means to lure them from their post, and I escaped them. I had promised her – what had I promised her? Oh, my poor Charlot! my brain wanders strangely at times. No matter. Here, in your palace of the Louvre, too, they would have shut the doors to me; but they knew you loved me, Charlot, and they dared not refuse my supplications. Oh my boy, my boy, that I should see you thus!"

"Perrotte! hast thou forgiven me?" said the king with a violent effort, for his breath was now fast failing him. His mother watched the scene with folded arms and haughty mien. Each ebbing of the breath brought her nearer to her much-desired power.

"Hast thou forgiven me?" sobbed the king.

"May God forgive the injuries thou hast done to others, as I now forgive thee on thy bed of suffering, those thou hast done to mine," said the old woman solemnly; and rising from her recumbent position, she advanced to the head of the couch, and took the dying man in her arms, as it were an infant she clasped to her bosom.