"Their Henry of Navarre."
"But he is not lost. There has been no battle."
"Lost to them," said Maître Jacques, "when he turns Catholic."
"Oh!" I cried.
"Oh!" he mocked. "You come from the country; you don't know these
things."
"But the King of Navarre is too stiff-necked a heretic!"
"Bah! Time bends the stiffest neck. Tell me this: for what do the
learned doctors sit in council at Mantes?"
"Oh," said I, bewildered, "you tell me news, Maître Jacques."
"If Henry of Navarre be not a Catholic before the month is out, spit me
on my own jack," he answered, eying me rather keenly as he added:
"It should be welcome news to you."
Welcome was it; it made plain the reason Monsieur's change of base. Yet
it was my duty to be discreet.
"I am glad to hear of any heretic coming to the faith," I said.
"Pshaw!" he cried. "To the devil with pretences! 'Tis an open secret
that your patron has gone over to Navarre."
"I know naught of it."
"Well, pardieu! my Lord Mayenne does, then. If when he came to Paris M.
de St. Quentin counted that the League would not know his parleyings, he
was a fool."
"His parleyings?" I echoed feebly.
"Aye, the boy in the street knows he has been with Navarre. For, mark
you, all France has been wondering these many months where St. Quentin
was coming out. His movements do not go unnoted like a yokel's. But, i'
faith, he is not dull; he understands that well enough. Nay, 'tis my
belief he came into the city in pure effrontery to show them how much he
dared. He is a bold blade, your duke. And, mon dieu! it had its effect.
For the Leaguers have been so agape with astonishment ever since that
they have not raised a finger against him."
"Yet you do not think him safe?"
"Safe, say you? Safe! Pardieu! if you walked into a cage of lions, and
they did not in the first instant eat you, would you therefore feel
safe? He was stark mad to come to Paris. There is no man the League
hates more, now they know they have lost him, and no man they can afford
so ill to spare to King Henry. A great Catholic noble, he would be meat
and drink to the Béarnais. He was mad to come here."
"And yet nothing has happened to him."
"Verily, fortune favours the brave. No, nothing has happened--yet. But I
tell you true, Félix, I had rather be the poor innkeeper of the Amour de
Dieu than stand in M. de St. Quentin's shoes."
"I was talking with the men here last night," I said. "There was not one
but had a good word for Monsieur."
"Aye, so they have. They like his pluck. And if the League kills him it
is quite on the cards that the people will rise up and make the town
lively. But that will not profit M. de St. Quentin if he is dead."