must not, he said, be surprised if they treated as equals with a king who recognized God only as above him, for their thoughts came from God alone.  They therefore claimed from me as much confidence and trust as they should give to me.  But before engaging themselves to answer me without reserve they must request me to put my left hand into that of the young girl lying there, and my right into that of the old woman.  Not wishing them to think I was afraid of their sorcery, I held out my hands; Lorenzo took the right, Cosmo the left, and each placed a hand in that of each woman, so that I was like Jesus Christ between the two thieves.  During the time that the two witches were examining my hands Cosmo held a mirror before me and asked me to look into it; his brother, meanwhile, was talking with the two women in a language unknown to me.  Neither Tavannes nor I could catch the meaning of a single sentence.  Before bringing the men here we put seals on all the outlets of the laboratory, which Tavannes undertook to guard until such time as, by my express orders, Bernard Palissy, and Chapelain, my physician, could be brought there to examine thoroughly the drugs the place contained and which were evidently made there.  In order to keep the Ruggieri ignorant of this search, and to prevent them from communicating with a single soul outside, I put the two devils in your lower rooms in charge of Solern’s Germans, who are better than the walls of a jail.  Rene, the perfumer, is kept under guard in his own house by Solern’s equerry, and so are the two witches.  Now, my sweetest, inasmuch as I hold the keys of the whole cabal,—­the kings of Thune, the chiefs of sorcery, the gypsy fortune-tellers, the masters of the future, the heirs of all past soothsayers,—­I intend by their means to read you, to know your heart; and, together, we will find out what is to happen to us.”

“I shall be glad if they can lay my heart bare before you,” said Marie, without the slightest fear.

“I know why sorcerers don’t frighten you,—­because you are a witch yourself.”

“Will you have a peach?” she said, offering him some delicious fruit on a gold plate.  “See these grapes, these pears; I went to Vincennes myself and gathered them for you.”

“Yes, I’ll eat them; there is no poison there except a philter from your hands.”

“You ought to eat a great deal of fruit, Charles; it would cool your blood, which you heat by such excitements.”

“Must I love you less?”

“Perhaps so,” she said.  “If the things you love injure you—­and I have feared it—­I shall find strength in my heart to refuse them.  I adore Charles more than I love the king; I want the man to live, released from the tortures that make him grieve.”

“Royalty has ruined me.”

“Yes,” she replied.  “If you were only a poor prince, like your brother-in-law of Navarre, without a penny, possessing only a miserable little kingdom in Spain where he never sets his foot, and Bearn in France which doesn’t give him revenue enough to feed him, I should be happy, much happier than if I were really Queen of France.”