“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.”

I would not be dampened, though, by an old croaker.

“Nay, maitre, if the people are with him, the League will not dare—­”

“There you fool yourself, my springald.  If there is one thing which the nobles of the League neither know nor care about it is what the people think.  They sit wrangling over their French League and their Spanish League, their kings and their princesses, and what this lord does and that lord threatens, and they give no heed at all to us—­us, the people.  But they will find out their mistake.  Some day they will be taught that the nobles are not all of France.  There will come a reckoning when more blood will flow in Paris than ever flowed on St. Bartholomew’s day.  They think we are chained down, do they?  Pardieu! there will come a day!”

I scarcely knew the man; his face was flushed, his eyes sparkling as if they saw more than the common room and mean street.  But as I stared the glow faded, and he said in a lower tone: 

“At least, it will happen unless Henry of Navarre comes to save us from it.  He is a good fellow, this Navarre.”

“They say he can never enter Paris.”

“They say lies.  Let him but leave his heresies behind him and he can enter Paris to-morrow.”

“Mayenne does not think so.”

“No; but Mayenne knows little of what goes on.  He does not keep an inn in the Rue Coupejarrets.”

He stated the fact so gravely that I had to laugh.

“Laugh if you like; but I tell you, Felix Broux, my lord’s council-chamber is not the only place where they make kings.  We do it, too, we of the Rue Coupejarrets.”

“Well,” said I, “I leave you, then, to make kings.  I must be off to my duke.  What’s the scot, maitre?”

He dropped the politician, and was all innkeeper in a second.

“A crown!” I cried in indignation.  “Do you think I am made of crowns?  Remember, I am not yet Minister of Finance.”

“No, but soon will be,” he grinned.  “Besides, what I ask is little enough, God knows.  Do you think food is cheap in a siege?”

“Then I pray Navarre may come soon and end it.”

“Amen to that,” said old Jacques, quite gravely.  “If he comes a Catholic it cannot be too soon.”

I counted out my pennies with a last grumble.

“They ought to call this the Rue Coupebourses.”

He laughed; he could afford to, with my silver jingling in his pouch.  He embraced me tenderly at parting, and hoped to see me again at his inn.  I smiled to myself; I had not come to Paris—­I—­to stay in the Rue Coupejarrets!