Read "Catherine De' Medici" by Honoré De Balzac online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Yes," returned the king. "In a second I was there, followed by Tavannes, and then we clambered to a spot where I could see without being seen the interior of that devil's kitchen, in which I beheld extraordinary things which inspired me to take certain measures. Did you ever notice the end of the roof of that cursed perfumer? The windows toward the street are always closed and dark, except the last, from which can be seen the hotel de Soissons and the observatory which my mother built for that astrologer, Cosmo Ruggiero. Under the roof are lodging-rooms and a gallery which have no windows except on the courtyard, so that in order to see what was going on within, it was necessary to go where no man before ever dreamed of climbing, -- along the coping of a high wall which adjoins the roof of Rene's house.
The men who set up in that house the furnaces by which they distil death, reckoned on the cowardice of Parisians to save them from being overlooked; but they little thought of Charles de Valois! I crept along the coping until I came to a window, against the casing of which I was able to stand up straight with my arm round a carved monkey which ornamented it."