Just as no two pots will boil alike, so with men; they seethe in trouble with a difference.  With one the grief is taken inly:  this was Richard’s kind.  The French King was feverish, the Marquess explosive, John of England all eyes and alarms.  So Richard’s remedy for trouble was action, Philip’s counsel, the Marquess’s a glut of hatred, and John’s plotting.  The consequence is, that in the present vexed state of things Richard threw off his discontent with his bedclothes, and at once took the lead of the others, because it could be done at once.  He declared open war against the King his father, despatching heralds with the cartel the same day; he gave King Philip to understand that the French power might be for him or against him as seemed fitting, but that no power in heaven or on earth would engage him to marry Dame Alois.  King Philip, still clinging to his friend, made a treaty of alliance with him against Henry of England.  That done, sealed and delivered, Richard sent for his brother John.  ‘Brother,’ he said, ’I have declared war against my father, and Philip is to be of our party.  In his name and my own I am to tell you that one of two things you must do.  You may stay in our lands or leave them; but if you stay you must sign our treaty of alliance.’  Too definite for John, all this:  he asked for time, and Richard gave him till nightfall.  At dusk he sent for him again.  John chose to stay in Paris.  Then Richard thought he would go home to Poictou.  The moment his back was turned began various closetings of the magnates left behind, with which I mean to fatigue the reader as little as possible.

One such chamber-business I must record.  To Paris in the black February weather came pelting the young Count Eustace, now by his brother’s death Count of Saint-Pol.  Misfortune, they say, makes of one a man or a saint.  Of Eustace Saint-Pol it had made a man.  After his homage done, this youth still kneeling, his hands still between Philip’s hands, looked fixedly into his sovereign’s face, and ‘A boon, fair sire!’ he said.  ’A boon to your new man!’

‘What now, Saint-Pol?’ asked King Philip.

‘Sire,’ he said, ’my sister’s marriage is in you.  I beg you to give her to Messire Gilles de Gurdun, a good knight of Normandy.’

‘That is a poor marriage for her, Saint-Pol,’ said the King, considering, ’and a poor marriage for me, by Saint Mary.  Why should I enrich the King of England, with whom I am at war?  You must give me reason for that.’

‘I will give you this reason,’ said young Saint-Pol; ’it is because that devil who slew my brother will have her else.’

King Philip said, ’Why, I can give her to one who will hold her fast.  Your Gurdun is a Norman, you say?  Well, but Count Richard in a little while will have him under his hand; and how are you served then?’

‘I doubt, sire,’ replied Saint-Pol.  ’Moreover, there is this, if it please you to hear it.  When the Count of Poictou repudiated (as he most villainously did) my sister, he himself gave her to Gurdun.  But I fear him, lest seeing her any other’s he should take her again.’