“Ah, give me the paper,” came the raucous voice of the President of Brittany, as he reached a bony hand over his master’s shoulder to seize it.

The Lord James advanced, and giving it to him said, “Messire, I would have you know that a copy of this is already in the hands of a trusty person in each of the towns and villages which are named here, and from which children have been led to cruel death by him whom I have accused, Gilles de Retz, Marshal of France.”

The President of Brittany nodded as he almost snatched the paper in his eagerness to peruse it.

“The point is cleverly taken,” he said, “as justly indeed as if you knew my Lord of Brittany as well as, for instance, I know him.”

The Duke was obviously discomfited.  He shuffled his feet more than ever on the dais and combed his straggling fair beard with soft, white, tapering fingers.

“This is wild and wholly absurd,” he said, without however looking at James Douglas; “our cousin Gilles is in ill odour with the commonalty.  He is a philosopher and makes smells with bottles.  But there is neither harm nor witchcraft in it.  He is only trying to discover the elixir of life.  So the silly folk think him a wizard.  I know him better.  He is a brave soldier and my good cousin.  I will not have him molested.”

“My lord speaks of kinship,” grated the voice of Pierre de l’Hopital.  “Here are the names of four hundred fathers and mothers who have also a claim to be heard on that subject, and whose voices, if I judge right, are being heard at this moment around the Castles of Machecoul, Tiffauges, Champtoce, and Pouzages.  I wot there is now a crowd of a thousand men pouring through the passages of the Hotel de Suze in your Grace’s own ducal city of Nantes.  And if there goes a bruit abroad, that your Highness is protecting this monster whom the people hate, and the evidences of whose horrid cruelty are by this time in their hands—­well, your Grace knows the Bretons as well as I. They will make one end of Gilles de Retz and of his cousin John, Duke of Brittany.”

“Think you so—­think you so truly, Pierre?” cried the unhappy reigning prince; “I would not screen him if this be true.  But the King—­what of the King?  They say he hath promised him support with arms and men for recovering to him and to Louis the Dauphin the Duchy of Touraine.”

“And think you, my lord, that the Dauphin will keep his promise, if we show him good cause why he should fare better by breaking it?” suggested Pierre de l’Hopital, with the grim irony which had become habitual to him.

John of Brittany paused irresolute.

“Besides which,” continued James Douglas, “I may add that this paper is already in the hands of the Cardinal Bishop of Nantes, and if your Grace will not move in the matter, his Eminence has promised to see justice done.”