“Pasques-Dieu!” he cried; “here’s an audacity that deserves the axe.”

“Sire,” replied Saint-Vallier, haughtily, “I would prefer an axe at my throat to the ornament of marriage on my head.”

“You may have both,” said Louis XI.  “None of you are safe from such infirmities, messieurs.  Go into the farther hall.  Conyngham,” continued the king, addressing the captain of the guard, “you are asleep!  Where is Monsieur de Bridore?  Why do you let me be approached in this way?  Pasques-Dieu! the lowest burgher in Tours is better served than I am.”

After scolding thus, Louis re-entered his room; but he took care to draw the tapestried curtain, which made a second door, intended more to stifle the words of the king than the whistling of the harsh north wind.

“So, my daughter,” he said, liking to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse, “Georges d’Estouteville was your lover last night?”

“Oh, no, sire!”

“No!  Ah! by Saint-Carpion, he deserves to die.  Did the scamp not think my daughter beautiful?”

“Oh! that is not it,” she said.  “He kissed my feet and hands with an ardor that might have touched the most virtuous of women.  He loves me truly in all honor.”

“Do you take me for Saint-Louis, and suppose I should believe such nonsense?  A young fellow, made like him, to have risked his life just to kiss your little slippers or your sleeves!  Tell that to others.”

“But, sire, it is true.  And he came for another purpose.”

Having said these words, Marie felt that she had risked the life of her husband, for Louis instantly demanded: 

“What purpose?”

The adventure amused him immensely.  But he did not expect the strange confidences his daughter now made to him after stipulating for the pardon of her husband.

“Ho, ho, Monsieur de Saint-Vallier!  So you dare to shed the royal blood!” cried the king, his eyes lighting with anger.

At this moment the bell of Plessis sounded the hour of the king’s dinner.  Leaning on the arm of his daughter, Louis XI. appeared with contracted brows on the threshold of his chamber, and found all his servitors in waiting.  He cast an ambiguous look on the Comte de Saint-Vallier, thinking of the sentence he meant to pronounce upon him.  The deep silence which reigned was presently broken by the steps of Tristan l’Hermite as he mounted the grand staircase.  The grand provost entered the hall, and, advancing toward the king, said:—­

“Sire, the affair is settled.”

“What! is it all over?” said the king.

“Our man is in the hands of the monks.  He confessed the theft after a touch of the ‘question.’”

The countess gave a sign, and turned pale; she could not speak, but looked at the king.  That look was observed by Saint-Vallier, who muttered in a low tone:  “I am betrayed; that thief is an acquaintance of my wife.”