Chapter 46 - Page 2

his house. I do not suppose, sire, that if your sister, Catherine d'Albret, occasioned some scandal, you would have it published by a captain of the guards."

"Oh! I am like a good-natured bourgeois, and not a king; but the letter, the letter; since it was addressed to me, I wish to know what it contains."

"It is a perfidious letter, sire."

"Bah!"

"Oh! yes, and which contains more calumnies than are necessary to embroil a husband with his wife, and a friend with his friends."

"Oh! oh! embroil a husband with his wife; you and me then?"

"Yes, sire."

Chicot was on thorns; he would have given much, hungry as he was, to be in bed without supper.

"The storm is about to burst," thought he.

"Sire," said Marguerite, "I much regret that your majesty has forgotten your Latin."

"Madame, of all the Latin I learned, I remember but one phrase--'Deus et virtus oeterna'--a singular assemblage of masculine, feminine, and neuter."

"Because, sire, if you did understand, you would see in the letter many compliments to me."

"But how could compliments embroil us, madame? For as long as your brother pays you compliments, I shall agree with him; if he speaks ill of you, I shall understand his policy."

"Ah! if he spoke ill of me, you would understand it?"

"Yes; he has reasons for embroiling us, which I know well."

"Well, then, sire, these compliments are only an insinuating prelude to calumnious accusations against your friends and mine."

"Come, ma mie, you have understood badly; let me hear if all this be in the letter."

Marguerite looked defiant.

"Do you want your followers or not, sire?" said she.

"Do I want them? what a question! What should I do without them, and reduced to my own resources?"

"Well, sire, the king wishes to detach your best servants from you."

"I defy him."

"Bravo, sire!" said Chicot.

"Yes," said Henri, with that apparent candor, with which to the end of his life he deceived people, "for my followers are attached to me through love, and not through interest; I have nothing to give them."

"You give them all your heart and your faith, sire; it is the best return a king can make his friends."

"Yes, ma mie, I shall not fail to do so till I find that they do not merit it."

"Well, sire, they wish to make you believe that they do not."

"Ah! but how?"

"I cannot tell you, sire, without compromising--" and she glanced at Chicot.

"Dear M. Chicot," said Henri,