“So much the better,” thought the king, glad to leave his spies behind him.

Tavannes began to laugh at the two Florentines, left sitting alone in the midst of deep silence, in a place where they had nought but the skies above them, and the cats for auditors.  But the brothers made use of their position to exchange thoughts they would not dare to utter on any other spot in the world,—­thoughts inspired by the events of the evening.

“Albert,” said the Grand-master to the marechal, “the king will get the better of the queen-mother; we are doing a foolish thing for our own interests to stay by those of Catherine.  If we go over to the king now, when he is searching everywhere for support against her and for able men to serve him, we shall not be driven away like wild beasts when the queen-mother is banished, imprisoned, or killed.”

“You wouldn’t get far with such ideas, Charles,” replied the marechal, gravely.  “You’d follow the king into the grave, and he won’t live long; he is ruined by excesses.  Cosmo Ruggiero predicts his death within a year.”

“The dying boar has often killed the huntsman,” said Charles de Gondi.  “This conspiracy of the Duc d’Alencon, the king of Navarre, and the Prince de Conde, with whom La Mole and Coconnas are negotiating, is more dangerous than useful.  In the first place, the king of Navarre, whom the queen-mother hoped to catch in the very act, distrusts her, and declines to run his head into the noose.  He means to profit by the conspiracy without taking any of its risks.  Besides, the notion now is to put the crown on the head of the Duc d’Alencon, who has turned Calvinist.”

“Budelone! but don’t you see that this conspiracy enables the queen-mother to find out what the Huguenots can do with the Duc d’Alencon, and what the king can do with the Huguenots?—­for the king is even now negotiating with them; but he’ll be finely pilloried to-morrow, when Catherine reveals to him the counter-conspiracy which will neutralize all his projects.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Charles de Gondi, “by dint of profiting by our advice she’s clever and stronger than we!  Well, that’s all right.”

“All right for the Duc d’Anjou, who prefers to be king of France rather than king of Poland; I am going now to explain the matter to him.”

“When do you start, Albert?”

“To-morrow.  I am ordered to accompany the king of Poland; and I expect to join him in Venice, where the patricians have taken upon themselves to amuse and delay him.”

“You are prudence itself!”

“Che bestia!  I swear to you there is not the slightest danger for either of us in remaining at court.  If there were, do you think I would go away?  I should stay by the side of our kind mistress.”

“Kind!” exclaimed the Grand-master; “she is a woman to drop all her instruments the moment she finds them heavy.”