"Have you not deceived me?" quoth he.
"Oh, sire, I am weary of these suspicions!" I answered, affecting an
indifference I did not feel. "If your Majesty does not--"
But he cut me short. "Answer me!" he said harshly, his mouth working
in his beard and his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Have you not
deceived me?"
"No, sire!" I said.
"Yet you have told me day by day that Madame de Conde remained in
Brussels?"
"Certainly!"
"And you still say so?"
"Most certainly!" I answered firmly, beginning to think that his
passion had turned his brain. "I had despatches to that effect this
morning."
"Of what date?"
"Three days gone. The courier travelled night and day."
"They may be true, and still she may be here to-day?" he said, staring
at me.
"Impossible, sire!"
"But, man, I have just seen her!" he cried impatiently.
"Madame de Conde?"
"Yes, Madame de Conde, or I am a madman!" Henry answered, speaking a
little more moderately. "I saw her gallop out of the patch of rocks at
the end of the Dormoir--where the trees begin. She did not heed the
line of the hounds, but turned straight down the boxwood ride; and,
after that, led as I followed. Did you not see her?"
"No, sire," I said, inexpressibly alarmed--I could take it for nothing
but fantasy--"I saw no one."
"And I saw her as clearly as I see you," he answered. "She wore the
yellow ostrich-feather she wore last year, and rode her favourite
chestnut horse with a white stocking. But I could have sworn to her by
her figure alone; and she waved her hand to me."
"But, sire, out of the many ladies riding to-day--"
"There is no lady wearing a yellow feather," he answered passionately.
"And the horse! And I knew her, man! Besides, she waved to me! And,
for the others--why should they turn from the hunt and take to the
woods?"
I could not answer this, but I looked at him in fear; for, as it was
impossible that the Princess de Conde could be here, I saw no
alternative but to think him smitten with madness. The extravagance of
the passion which he had entertained for her, and the wrath into which
the news of her flight with her young husband had thrown him, to say
nothing of the depression under which he had since suffered, rendered
the idea not so unlikely as it now seems. At any rate, I was driven
for a moment to entertain it; and gazed at him in silence, a prey to
the most dreadful apprehensions.
We stood in a narrow ride, bordered by evergreens, with which that part
of the forest is planted; and but for the songs of the birds the
stillness would have been absolute. On a sudden the King removed his
eyes from me, and, walking his horse a pace or two along the ride,
uttered a cry of joy.
He pointed to the ground. "We are right!" he said. "There are her
tracks! Come! We will overtake her yet!"
I looked, and saw the fresh prints of a horse's shoes, and felt a great
weight roll off my mind, for at least he had seen someone. I no longer
hesitated to fall in with his humour, but, riding after him, kept at
his elbow until he reached the end of the ride. Here, a vista opening
right and left, and the ground being hard and free from tracks, we
stood at a loss; until the King, whose eyesight was always of the
keenest, uttered an exclamation, and started from me at a gallop.
I followed more slowly, and saw him dismount and pick up a glove,
which, even at that distance, he had discerned lying in the middle of
one of the paths. He cried, with a flushed face, that it was Madame de
Conde's; and added: "It has her perfume--her perfume, which no one
else uses!"
I confess that this so staggered me that I knew not what to think; but,
between sorrow at seeing my master so infatuated and bewilderment at a
riddle that grew each moment more perplexing, I sat gaping at Henry
like a man without counsel. However, at the moment, he needed none,
but, getting to his saddle as quickly as he could, he began again to
follow the tracks of the horse's feet, which here were visible, the
path running through a beech wood. The branches were still bare, and
the shining trunks stood up like pillars, the ground about them being
soft. We followed the prints through this wood for a mile and a half
or more, and then, with a cry, the King darted from me, and, in an
instant, was racing through the wood at break-neck speed.
I had a glimpse of a woman flying far ahead of us; and now hidden from
us by the trunks and now disclosed; and could even see enough to
determine that she wore a yellow feather drooping from her hat, and was
in figure not unlike the Princess. But that was all; for, once
started, the inequalities of the ground drew my eyes from the flying
form, and, losing it, I could not again recover it. On the contrary,
it was all I could do to keep up with the King; and of the speed at
which the woman was riding, could best judge by the fact that in less
than five minutes he, too, pulled-up with a gesture of despair, and
waited for me to come abreast of him.
"You saw her?" he said, his face grim, and with something of suspicion
lurking in it.
"Yes, sire," I answered, "I saw a woman, and a woman with a yellow
feather; but whether it was the Princess--"
"It was!" he said. "If not, why should she flee from us?"
To that, again, I had not a word to say, and for a moment we rode in
silence. Observing, however, that this last turn had brought us far on
the way home, I called the King's attention to this; but he had sunk
into a fit of gloomy abstraction, and rode along with his eyes on the
ground. We proceeded thus until the slender path we followed brought
up into the great road that leads through the forest to the kennels and
the new canal.
Here I asked him if he would not return to the chase, as the day was
still young.
"Mon Dieu, no!" he answered passionately. "I have other work to do.
Hark ye, M. le Duc, do you still think that she is in Brussels?"
"I swear that she was there three days ago, sire!"
"And you are not deceiving me? If it be so, God forgive you, for I
shall not!"
"It is no trick of mine, sire," I answered firmly.
"Trick?" he cried, with a flash of his eyes. "A trick, you say? No,
VENTRE DE SAINT GRIS! there is no man in France dare trick me so!"
I did not contradict him, the rather as we were now close to the
kennels, and I was anxious to allay his excitement; that it might not
be detected by the keen eyes that lay in wait for us, and so add to the
gossip to which his early return must give rise. I hoped that at that
hour he might enter unperceived, by way of the kennels and the little
staircase; but in this I was disappointed, the beauty of the day having
tempted a number of ladies, and others who had not hunted, to the
terrace by the canal; whence, walking up and down, their fans and
petticoats fluttering in the sunshine, and their laughter and chatter
filling the air, they were able to watch our approach at their leisure.
Unfortunately, Henry had no longer the patience and self-control
needful for such a RENCONTRE. He dismounted with a dark and peevish
air, and, heedless of the staring, bowing throng, strode up the steps.
Two or three, who stood high in favour, put themselves forward to catch
a smile or a word, but he vouchsafed neither. He walked through them
with a sour air, and entered the chateau with a precipitation that left
all tongues wagging.
To add to the misfortune, something--I forget what--detained me a
moment, and that cost us dear. Before I could cross the terrace,
Concini, the Italian, came up, and, saluting me, said that the Queen
desired to speak to me.
"The Queen?" I said, doubtfully, foreseeing trouble.
"She is waiting at the gate of the farther court," he answered
politely, his keen black eyes reverting, with eager curiosity, to the
door by which the King had disappeared.
I could not refuse, and went to her. "The King has returned early, M.
le Duc?" she said.
"Yes, madame," I answered. "He had a fancy to discuss affairs to-day,
and we lost the hounds."
"Together?"
"I had the honour, Madame."
"You do not seem to have agreed very well?" she said, smiling.
"Madame," I answered bluntly, "his Majesty has no more faithful
servant; but we do not always agree."
She raised her hand, and, with a slight gesture, bade her ladies stand
back, while her face lost its expression of good-temper, and grew sharp
and dark. "Was it about the Conde?" she said, in a low, grating
voice. "No, madame," I answered; "it was about certain provisions.
The King's ear had been grossly abused, and his Majesty led to
believe--"
"Faugh!" she cried, with a wave of contempt, "that is an old story! I
am sick of it. Is she still at Brussels?"
"Still, madame."
"Then see that she stops there!" her Majesty retorted, with a meaning
look.
And with that she dismissed me, and went into the chateau. I proposed
to rejoin the King; but, to my chagrin, I found, when I reached the
closet, that he had already sent for Varennes, and was shut up with
him. I went back to my rooms therefore, and, after changing my hunting
suit and transacting some necessary business, sat down to dinner with
Nicholas, the King's secretary, a man fond of the table, whom I often
entertained. He kept me in talk until the afternoon was well advanced,
and we were still at table when Maignan appeared and told me that the
King had sent for me.
"I will go," I said, rising.
"He is with the Queen, your Excellency," he continued.
This somewhat surprised me, but I thought no evil; and, finding one of
the Queen's Italian pages at the door waiting to conduct me, I followed
him across the court that lay between my lodgings and her apartments.
Two or three of the King's gentlemen were in the anteroom when I
arrived, and Varennes, who was standing by one of the fire-places
toying with a hound, made me a face of dismay; he could not speak,
owing to the company.
Still this, in a degree, prepared me for the scene in the chamber,
where I found the Queen storming up and down the room, while the King,
still in his hunting dress, sat on a low chair by the fire, apparently
drying his boots. Mademoiselle Galigai, the Queen's waiting-woman,
stood in the background; but more than this I had not time to observe,
for, before I had reached the middle of the floor, the Queen turned on
me, and began to abuse me with a vehemence which fairly shocked me.
"And you!" she cried, "who speak so slow, and look so solemn, and all
the time do his dirty work, like the meanest cook he has ennobled! It
is well you are here! ENFIN, you are found out--you and your
provisions! Your provisions, of which you talked in the wood!"
"MON DIEU!" the King groaned; "give me patience!"
"He has given me patience these ten years, sire!" she retorted
passionately. "Patience to see myself flouted by your favourites,
insulted and displaced, and set aside! But this is too much! It was
enough that you made yourself the laughing-stock of France once with
this madame! I will not have it again--no: though twenty of your
counsellors frown at me!"
"Your Majesty seems displeased," I said. "But as I am quite in the
dark--"
"Liar!" she cried, giving way to her fury. "When you were with her
this morning! When you saw her! When you stooped to--"
"Madame!" the King said sternly, "if you forget yourself, be good
enough to remember that you are speaking to French gentlemen, not to
traders of Florence!"
She sneered. "You think to wound me by that!" she cried, breathing
quickly. "But I have my grandfather's blood in me, sire; and no King
of France--"
"One King of France will presently make your uncle of that blood sing
small!" the King answered viciously. "So much for that; and for the
rest, sweetheart, softly, softly!"
"Oh!" she cried, "I will go: I will not stay to be outraged by that
woman's presence!"
I had now an inkling what was the matter; and discerning that the
quarrel was a more serious matter than their every-day bickerings, and
threatened to go to lengths that might end in disaster, I ignored the
insult her Majesty had flung at me, and entreated her to be calm. "If
I understand aright, madame," I said, "you have some grievance against
his Majesty. Of that I know nothing. But I also understand that you
allege something against me; and it is to speak to that, I presume,
that I am summoned. If you will deign to put the matter into words--"
"Words!" she cried. "You have words enough! But get out of this,
Master Grave-Airs, if you can! Did you, or did you not, tell me this
morning that the Princess of Conde was in Brussels?"
"I did, madame."
"Although half an hour before you had seen her, you had talked with
her, you had been with her in the forest?"
"But I had not, madame!"
"What?" she cried, staring at me, surprised doubtless that I
manifested no confusion. "Do you say that you did not see her?"
"I did not."
"Nor the King?"
"The King, Madame, cannot have seen her this morning," I said, "because
he is here and she is in Brussels."
"You persist in that?"
"Certainly!" I said. "Besides, madame," I continued, "I have no doubt
that the King has given you his word--"
"His word is good for everyone but his wife!" she answered bitterly.
"And for yours, M. le Duc, I will show you what it is worth.
Mademoiselle, call--"
"Nay, madame!" I said, interrupting her with spirit, "if you are going
to call your household to contradict me--"
"But I am not!" she cried in a voice of triumph that, for the moment,
disconcerted me. "Mademoiselle, send to M. de Bassompierre's lodgings,
and bid him come to me!"
The King whistled softly, while I, who knew Bassompierre to be devoted
to him, and to be, in spite of the levity to which his endless
gallantries bore witness, a man of sense and judgment, prepared myself
for a serious struggle; judging that we were in the meshes of an
intrigue, wherein it was impossible to say whether the Queen figured as
actor or dupe. The passion she evinced as she walked to and fro with
clenched hands, or turned now and again to dart a fiery glance at the
Cordovan curtain that hid the door, was so natural to her character
that I found myself leaning to the latter supposition. Still, in grave
doubt what part Bassompierre was to play, I looked for his coming as
anxiously as anyone. And probably the King shared this feeling; but he
affected indifference, and continued to sit over the fire with an air
of mingled scorn and peevishness.
At length Bassompierre entered, and, seeing the King, advanced with an
open brow that persuaded me, at least, of his innocence. Attacked on
the instant, however, by the Queen, and taken by surprise, as it were,
between two fires--though the King kept silence, and merely shrugged
his shoulders--his countenance fell. He was at that time one of the
handsomest gallants about the Court, thirty years old, and the darling
of women; but at this his APLOMB failed him, and with it my heart sank
also.
"Answer, sir! answer!" the Queen cried. "And without subterfuge!
Who was it, sir, whom you saw come from the forest this morning?"
"Madame?"
"In one word!"
"If your Majesty will--"
"I will permit you to answer," the Queen exclaimed.
"I saw his Majesty return," he faltered--"and M. de Sully."
"Before them! before them!"
"I may have been mistaken."
"Pooh, man!" the Queen cried with biting contempt. "You have told it
to half-a-dozen. Discretion comes a little late."
"Well, if you will, madame," he said, striving to assert himself, but
cutting a poor figure, "I fancied that I saw Madame de Conde--"
"Come out of the wood ten minutes before the King?"
"It may have been twenty," he muttered.
But the Queen cared no more for him. She turned, looking superb in her
wrath, to the King. "Now, sir!" she said. "Am I to bear this?"
"Sweet!" the King said, governing his temper in a way that surprised
me, "hear reason, and you shall have it in a word. How near was
Bassompierre to the lady he saw?"
"I was not within fifty paces of her!" the favourite cried eagerly.
"But others saw her!" the Queen rejoined sharply. "Madame Paleotti,
who was with the gentleman, saw her also, and knew her."
"At a distance of fifty paces?" the King said drily. "I don't attach
much weight to that." And then, rising, with a slight yawn. "Madame,"
he continued, with the air of command which he knew so well how to
assume, "for the present, I am tired! If Madame de Conde is here, it
will not be difficult to get further evidence of her presence. If she
is at Brussels, that fact, too, you can ascertain. Do the one or the
other, as you please; but, for to-day, I beg that you will excuse me."
"And that," the Queen cried shrilly--"that is to be--"
"All, madame!" the King said sternly. "Moreover, let me have no
prating outside this room. Grand-Master, I will trouble you."
And with these words, uttered in a voice and with an air that silenced
even the angry woman before us, he signed to me to follow him, and went
from the room; the first glance of his eye stilling the crowded
ante-chamber, as if the shadow of death passed with him. I followed
him to his closet; but, until he reached it, had no inkling of what was
in his thoughts. Then he turned to me.
"Where is she?" he said sharply.
I stared at him a moment. "Pardon, sire?" I said. "Do you think that
it was Madame de Conde?"
"Why not?"
"She is in Brussels."
"I tell you I saw her this morning!" he answered. "Go, learn all you
can! Find her! Find her! If she has returned, I will--God knows what
I will do!" he cried, in a voice shamefully broken. "Go; and send
Varennes to me. I shall sup alone: let no one wait."
I would have remonstrated with him, but he was in no mood to bear it;
and, sad at heart, I withdrew, feeling the perplexity, which the
situation caused me, a less heavy burden than the pain with which I
viewed the change that had of late come over my master; converting him
from the gayest and most DEBONAIRE of men into this morose and solitary
dreamer. Here, had I felt any temptation to moralise on the tyranny of
passion, was the occasion; but, as the farther I left the closet behind
me the more instant became the crisis, the present soon reasserted its
power. Reflecting that Henry, in this state of uncertainty, was
capable of the wildest acts, and that not less was to be feared from
his imprudence than from the Queen's resentment, I cudgelled my brains
to explain the RENCONTRE of the morning; but as the courier, whom I
questioned, confirmed the report of my agents, and asseverated most
confidently that he had left Madame in Brussels, I was flung back on
the alternative of an accidental resemblance. This, however, which
stood for a time as the most probable solution, scarcely accounted for
the woman's peculiar conduct, and quite fell to the ground when La
Trape, making cautious inquiries, ascertained that no lady hunting that
day had worn a yellow feather. Again, therefore, I found myself at a
loss; and the dejection of the King and the Queen's ill-temper giving
rise to the wildest surmises, and threatening each hour to supply the
gossips of the Court with a startling scandal, the issue of which no
one could foresee, I went so far as to take into my confidence MM.
Epernon and Montbazon; but with no result.
Such being my state of mind, and such the suspense I suffered during
two days, it may be imagined that M. Bassompierre was not more happy.
Despairing of the King's favour unless he could clear up the matter,
and by the event justify his indiscretion, he became for those two days
the wonder, and almost the terror, of the Court. Ignorant of what he
wanted, the courtiers found only insolence in his mysterious questions,
and something prodigious in an activity which carried him in one day to
Paris and back, and on the following to every place in the vicinity
where news of the fleeting beauty might by any possibility be gained;
so that he far outstripped my agents, who were on the same quest. But
though I had no mean opinion of his abilities, I hoped little from
these exertions, and was proportionately pleased when, on the third
day, he came to me with a radiant face and invited me to attend the
Queen that evening.
"The King will be there," he said, "and I shall surprise you. But I
will not tell you more. Come! and I promise to satisfy you."
And that was all he would say; so that, finding my questions useless,
and the man almost frantic with joy, I had to be content with it; and
at the Queen's hour that evening presented myself in her gallery, which
proved to be unusually full.
Making my way towards her in some doubt of my reception, I found my
worst fears confirmed. She greeted me with a sneering face, and was
preparing, I was sure, to put some slight upon me--a matter wherein she
could always count on the applause of her Italian servants--when the
entrance of the King took her by surprise. He advanced up the gallery
with a listless air, and, after saluting her, stood by one of the
fireplaces talking to Epernon and La Force. The crowd was pretty dense
by this time, and the hum of talk filled the room when, on a sudden, a
voice, which I recognised as Bassompierre's, was lifted above it.
"Very well!" he cried gaily, "then I appeal to her Majesty. She shall
decide, mademoiselle! No, no; I am not satisfied with your claim!"
The King looked that way with a frown, but the Queen took the outburst
in good part. "What is it, M. de Bassompierre?" she said. "What am I
to decide?"
"To-day, in the forest, I found a ring, madame," he answered, coming
forward. "I told Mademoiselle de la Force of my discovery, and she now
claims the ring."
"I once had a ring like it," cried mademoiselle, blushing and laughing.
"A sapphire ring?" Bassompierre answered, holding his hand aloft.
"Yes."
"With three stones?"
"Yes,"
"Precisely, mademoiselle!" he answered, bowing. "But the stones in
this ring are not sapphires, nor are there three of them."
There was a great laugh at this, and the Queen said, very wittily, that
as neither of the claimants could prove a right to the ring it must
revert to the judge.
"In one moment your Majesty shall at least see it," he answered. "But,
first, has anyone lost a ring? Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Lost, in the
forest, within the last three days, a ring!"
Two or three, falling in with his humour, set up absurd claims to it;
but none could describe the ring, and in the end he handed it to the
Queen. As he did so his eyes met mine and challenged my attention. I
was prepared, therefore, for the cry of surprise which broke from the
Queen.
"Why, this is Caterina's!" she cried. "Where is the child?"
Someone pushed forward Mademoiselle Paleotti, sister-in-law to Madame
Paleotti, the Queen's first chamberwoman. She was barely out of her
teens, and, ordinarily, was a pretty girl; but the moment I saw her
dead-white face, framed in a circle of fluttering fans and pitiless,
sparkling eyes, I discerned tragedy in the farce; and that M. de
Bassompierre was acting in a drama to which only he and one other held
the key. The contrast between the girl's blanched face and the beauty
and glitter in the midst of which she stood struck others, so that,
before another word was said, I caught the gasp of surprise that passed
through the room; nor was I the only one who drew nearer.
"Why, girl," the Queen said, "this is the ring I gave you on my
birthday! When did you lose it? And why have you made a secret of it?"
Mademoiselle stood speechless; but madame her sister-in-law answered
for her. "Doubtless she was afraid that your Majesty would think her
careless," she answered.
"I did not ask you!" the Queen rejoined.
She spoke harshly and suspiciously, looking from the ring to the
trembling girl. The silence was such that the chatter of the pages in
the anteroom could be heard. Still Mademoiselle stood dumb and
confounded.
"Well, what is the mystery?" the Queen said, looking round with a
little wonder. "What is the matter? It IS the ring. Why do you not
own it?"
"Perhaps mademoiselle is wondering where are the other things she left
with it!" Bassompierre said in a silky tone. "The things she left at
Parlot the verderer's, when she dropped the ring. But she may free her
mind; I have them here."
"What do you mean?" the Queen said. "What things, monsieur? What has
the girl been doing?"
"Only what many have done before her," Bassompierre answered, bowing to
his unfortunate victim, who seemed to be paralysed by terror:
"masquerading in other people's clothes. I propose, madame, that, for
punishment, you order her to dress in them, that we may see what her
taste is."
"I do not understand?" the Queen said.
"Your Majesty will, if Mademoiselle Paleotti will consent to humour us."
At that the girl uttered a cry, and looked round the circle as if for a
way of escape; but a Court is a cruel place, in which the ugly or
helpless find scant pity. A dozen voices begged the Queen to insist;
and, amid laughter and loud jests, Bassompierre hastened to the door,
and returned with an armful of women's gear, surmounted by a wig and a
feathered hat.
"If the Queen will command mademoiselle to retire and put these on," he
said, "I will undertake to show her something that will please her."
"Go!" said the Queen.
But the girl had flung herself on her knees before her, and, clinging
to her skirts, burst, into a flood of tears and prayers; while her
sister-in-law stepped forward as if to second her, and cried out, in
great excitement, that her Majesty would not be so cruel as to--
"Hoity, toity!" said the Queen, cutting her short, very grimly. "What
is all this? I tell the girl to put on a masquerade--which it seems
that she has been keeping at some cottage--and you talk as if I were
cutting off her head! It seems to me that she escapes very lightly!
Go! go! and see, you, that you are arrayed in five minutes, or I will
deal with you!"
"Perhaps Mademoiselle de la Force will go with her, and see that
nothing is omitted," Bassompierre said with malice.
The laughter and applause with which this proposal was received took me
by surprise; but later I learned that the two young women were rivals.
"Yes, yes," the Queen said. "Go, mademoiselle, and see that she does
not keep us waiting."
Knowing what I did, I had by this time a fair idea of the discovery
which Bassompierre had made; but the mass of courtiers and ladies round
me, who had not this advantage, knew not what to expect--nor,
especially, what part M. Bassompierre had in the business--but made
most diverting suggestions, the majority favouring the opinion that
Mademoiselle Paleotti had repulsed him, and that this was his way of
avenging himself. A few of the ladies even taxed him with this, and
tried, by random reproaches, to put him at least on his defence; but,
merrily refusing to be inveigled, he made to all the same answer that
when Mademoiselle Paleotti returned they would see. This served only
to whet a curiosity already keen, insomuch that the door was watched by
as many eyes as if a miracle had been promised; and even MM. Epernon
and Vendome, leaving the King's side, pressed into the crowd that they
might see the better. I took the opportunity of going to him, and,
meeting his eyes as I did so, read in them a look of pain and distress.
As I advanced he drew back a pace, and signed to me to stand before him.
I had scarcely done so when the door opened and Mademoiselle Paleotti,
pale, and supported on one side by her rival, appeared at it; but so
wondrously transformed by a wig, hat, and redingote that I scarcely
knew her. At first, as she stood, looking with shamed eyes at the
staring crowd, the impression made was simply one of bewilderment, so
complete was the disguise. But Bassompierre did not long suffer her to
stand so. Advancing to her side, his hat under his arm, he offered his
hand.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "will you oblige me by walking as far as the
end of the gallery with me?"
She complied involuntarily, being almost unable to stand alone. But the
two had not proceeded half-way down the gallery before a low murmur
began to be heard, that, growing quickly louder, culminated in an
astonished cry of "Madame de Conde! Madame de Conde!"
M. Bassompierre dropped her hand with a low bow, and turned to the
Queen. "Madame," he said, "this, I find, is the lady whom I saw on the
Terrace when Madame Paleotti was so good as to invite me to walk on the
Bois-le-Roi road. For the rest, your Majesty may draw your
conclusions."
It was easy to see that the Queen had already drawn them; but, for the
moment, the unfortunate girl was saved from her wrath. With a low cry,
Mademoiselle Paleotti did that which she would have done a little
before, had she been wise, and swooned on the floor.
I turned to look at the King, and found him gone. He had withdrawn
unseen in the first confusion of the surprise; nor did I dare at once
to interrupt him, or intrude on the strange mixture of regret and
relief, wrath and longing, that probably possessed him in the silence
of his closet. It was enough for me that the Italians' plot had
failed, and that the danger of a rupture between the King and Queen,
which these miscreants desired, and I had felt to be so great and
imminent, was, for this time, overpast.
The Paleottis were punished, being sent home in disgrace, and a penury,
which, doubtless, they felt more keenly. But, alas, the King could not
banish with them all who hated him and France; nor could I, with every
precaution, and by the unsparing use of all the faculties that, during
a score of years, had been at the service of my master, preserve him
for his country and the world. Before two months had run he perished by
a mean hand, leaving the world the poorer by the greatest and most
illustrious sovereign that ever ruled a nation. And men who loved
neither France nor him entered into his labours, whose end also I have
seen.