It was a sad and strange sight to behold all these elegant cavaliers and beautiful women passing, like one of the processions which Goya has painted, under the blackened skeletons and tall grim gibbets. The greater the mirth of the visitors, the more striking was the contrast with the mournful silence and cold insensibility of the corpses which were its object. Many of the party supported with difficulty this horrible spectacle; and Henry of Navarre especially, in spite of his powers of dissimulation and habitual command over himself, was at last unable to bear it longer. He took, as a pretext, the stench emitted by these human remains; and approaching Charles, who, with Catharine of Medicis, had paused before the body of the admiral--
"Sire," said he, "does not your Majesty find that the smell of this poor corpse is too noxious to be longer endured?"
"Ha! think you so, Harry?" cried Charles, whose eyes were sparkling with a ferocious joy.
"Then I am not of your opinion. _The body of a dead enemy always smells well._"
"By my faith! sire," said Monsieur de Tavannes, "your Majesty should have invited Pierre Ronsard to accompany us on this little visit to the admiral; he would have made an impromptu epitaph on old Gaspard."
"That will I make," said Charles. And after a moments reflection, "Listen, gentlemen," said he--
"Ci-gît, mais c'est mal entendu, Pour lui le mot est trop honnête, Ici l'amiral est pendu, Par les pieds, à faute de tête."
"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Catholic gentlemen with one voice, whilst the converted Huguenots there present maintained a gloomy silence. As to Henry, he was talking to Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers, and pretended not to hear.
"Come, sir," said Catharine, who, in spite of the perfumes with which she was covered, began to have enough of this tainted atmosphere--"Come, sir," said she to the king, "the best of friends must part. Let us bid adieu to the admiral, and return to Paris."
And bowing her head ironically to the corpse by way of a farewell, she turned her horse and regained the road, whilst her suite filed past the body of Coligny. The crowd followed the cavalcade, and ten minutes after the king's departure, no one remained near the mutilated body of the admiral.