“Then, sire, what did that robber whom you have taken under your protection come to do here, and why did he prowl about at night?”

“If you have not guessed why, my crony, I order you to remain in ignorance.  That is one of my secrets.”

“Then the devil is in my house!” cried the miser, piteously.

In any other circumstances the king would have laughed at his silversmith’s cry; but he had suddenly become thoughtful, and was casting on the Fleming those glances peculiar to men of talent and power which seem to penetrate the brain.  Cornelius was frightened, thinking he had in some way offended his dangerous master.

“Devil or angel, I have him, the guilty man!” cried Louis XI. abruptly.  “If you are robbed again to-night, I shall know to-morrow who did it.  Make that old hag you call your sister come here,” he added.

Cornelius almost hesitated to leave the king alone in the room with his hoards; but the bitter smile on Louis’s withered lips determined him.  Nevertheless he hurried back, followed by the old woman.

“Have you any flour?” demanded the king.

“Oh yes; we have laid in our stock for the winter,” she answered.

“Well, go and fetch some,” said the king.

“What do you want to do with our flour, sire?” she cried, not the least impressed by his royal majesty.

“Old fool!” said Cornelius, “go and execute the orders of our gracious master.  Shall the king lack flour?”

“Our good flour!” she grumbled, as she went downstairs.  “Ah! my flour!”

Then she returned, and said to the king:—­

“Sire, is it only a royal notion to examine my flour?”

At last she reappeared, bearing one of those stout linen bags which, from time immemorial, have been used in Touraine to carry or bring, to and from market, nuts, fruits, or wheat.  The bag was half full of flour.  The housekeeper opened it and showed it to the king, on whom she cast the rapid, savage look with which old maids appear to squirt venom upon men.

“It costs six sous the ‘septeree,’” she said.

“What does that matter?” said the king.  “Spread it on the floor; but be careful to make an even layer of it—­as if it had fallen like snow.”

The old maid did not comprehend.  This proposal astonished her as though the end of the world had come.

“My flour, sire! on the ground!  But—­”

Maitre Cornelius, who was beginning to understand, though vaguely, the intentions of the king, seized the bag and gently poured its contents on the floor.  The old woman quivered, but she held out her hand for the empty bag, and when her brother gave it back to her she disappeared with a heavy sigh.

Cornelius then took a feather broom and gently smoothed the flour till it looked like a fall of snow, retreating step by step as he did so, followed by the king, who seemed much amused by the operation.  When they reached the door Louis XI. said to his silversmith, “Are there two keys to the lock?”