Though he saved the prince by
this heroic treatment, he could not prevent the horrible scar which
gave the great soldier his nickname,--Le Balafre, the Scarred. This
name descended to the son, and for a similar reason.
Absolutely masters of Francois II., whom his wife ruled through their
mutual and excessive passion, these two great Lorrain princes, the
duke and the cardinal, were masters of France, and had no other enemy
at court than Catherine de' Medici. No great statesmen ever played a
closer or more watchful game.
The mutual position of the ambitious widow of Henri II. and the
ambitious house of Lorraine was pictured, as it were, to the eye by a
scene which took place on the terrace of the chateau de Blois very
early in the morning of the day on which Christophe Lecamus was
destined to arrive there. The queen-mother, who feigned an extreme
attachment to the Guises, had asked to be informed of the news brought
by the three /seigneurs/ coming from three different parts of the
kingdom; but she had the mortification of being courteously dismissed
by the cardinal. She then walked to the parterres which overhung the
Loire, where she was building, under the superintendence of her
astrologer, Ruggieri, an observatory, which is still standing, and
from which the eye may range over the whole landscape of that
delightful valley.
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