“Is Latin not very much like Italian?”

“So they say, sire.”

“And Spanish?”

“I believe so.”

“Then let us try.  I know a little Italian, and my Gascon patois is something like Spanish:  perhaps I may understand Latin without ever having learned it.”

“Your majesty orders me to repeat it, then?”

“I beg you, dear M. Chicot.”

Chicot began.

“Frater carissime,

“Sincerus amo quo te prosequebatur germanus noster Carolus Nonus, functus nuper, colet usque regiam nostram et pectori meo pertinaciter adhoeret.”

“If I am not mistaken,” said Henri, interrupting, “they speak in this phrase of love, obstinacy, and of my brother, Charles IX.”

“Very likely,” said Chicot; “Latin is such a beautiful language, that all that might go in one sentence.”

“Go on,” said the king.

Chicot began again, and Henri listened with the utmost calm to all the passages about Turenne and his wife, only at the word “Turennius,” he said: 

“Does not ‘Turennius’ mean Turenne?”

“I think so, sire.”

“And ‘Margota’ must be the pet name which my brothers gave to their sister Marguerite, my beloved wife.”

“It is possible,” said Chicot; and he continued his letter to the end without the king’s face changing in the least.

“Is it finished?” asked Henri, when he stopped.

“Yes, sire.”

“It ought to be superb.”

“I think so, also, sire.”

“How unlucky that I only understood two words, ‘Turennius’ and ‘Margota.’”

“An irreparable misfortune, sire, unless your majesty decides on having it translated by some one.”

“Oh! no; you yourself, M. Chicot, who were so discreet in destroying the autograph, you would not counsel me to make this letter public?”

“But I think that the king’s letter to you, recommended to me so carefully, and sent to your majesty by a private hand, must contain something important for your majesty to know.”

“Yes, but to confide these important things to any one, I must have great confidence in him.”

“Certainly.”

“Well, I have an idea.  Go and find my wife.  She is learned, and will understand it if you recite it to her; then she can explain it to me.”

“That is an excellent plan.”

“Is it not?  Go.”

“I will, sire.”

“Mind not to alter a word of the letter.”

“That would be impossible, sire.  To do that I must know Latin.”

“Go, then, my friend.”

Chicot took leave and went, more puzzled with the king than ever.

CHAPTER XLV.

The avenue three thousand feet long.

The queen inhabited the other wing of the castle.  The famous avenue began at her very window, and her eyes rested only on grass and flowers.  A native poet (Marguerite, in the provinces as in Paris, was always the star of the poets) had composed a sonnet about her.