“Oh! monsieur,” said the queen, rising from the king’s knee with a little air of indignation, “you said you would never worry me again on this subject, and that my uncles used the royal power only for the good of your people.  Your people!—­they are so nice!  They would gobble you up like a strawberry if you tried to rule them yourself.  You want a warrior, a rough master with mailed hands; whereas you—­you are a darling whom I love as you are; whom I should never love otherwise, —­do you hear me, monsieur?” she added, kissing the forehead of the lad, who seemed inclined to rebel at her speech, but softened at her kisses.

“Oh! how I wish they were not your uncles!” cried Francois II.  “I particularly dislike the cardinal; and when he puts on his wheedling air and his submissive manner and says to me, bowing:  ’Sire, the honor of the crown and the faith of your fathers forbid your Majesty to —­this and that,’ I am sure he is working only for his cursed house of Lorraine.”

“Oh, how well you mimicked him!” cried the queen.  “But why don’t you make the Guises inform you of what is going on, so that when you attain your grand majority you may know how to reign yourself?  I am your wife, and your honor is mine.  Trust me! we will reign together, my darling; but it won’t be a bed of roses for us until the day comes when we have our own wills.  There is nothing so difficult for a king as to reign.  Am I a queen, for example?  Don’t you know that your mother returns me evil for all the good my uncles do to raise the splendor of your throne?  Hey! what difference between them!  My uncles are great princes, nephews of Charlemagne, filled with ardor and ready to die for you; whereas this daughter of a doctor or a shopkeeper, queen of France by accident, scolds like a burgher-woman who can’t manage her own household.  She is discontented because she can’t set every one by the ears; and then she looks at me with a sour, pale face, and says from her pinched lips:  ’My daughter, you are a queen; I am only the second woman in the kingdom’ (she is really furious, you know, my darling), ’but if I were in your place I should not wear crimson velvet while all the court is in mourning; neither should I appear in public with my own hair and no jewels, because what is not becoming in a simple lady is still less becoming in a queen.  Also I should not dance myself, I should content myself with seeing others dance.’—­that is what she says to me—­”

“Heavens!” cried the king, “I think I hear her coming.  If she were to know—­”

“Oh, how you tremble before her.  She worries you.  Only say so, and we will send her away.  Faith, she’s Florentine and we can’t help her tricking you, but when it comes to worrying—­”

“For Heaven’s sake, Mary, hold your tongue!” said Francois, frightened and also pleased; “I don’t want you to lose her good-will.”

“Don’t be afraid that she will ever break with me, who will some day wear the three noblest crowns in the world, my dearest little king,” cried Mary Stuart.  “Though she hates me for a thousand reasons she is always caressing me in the hope of turning me against my uncles.”