“You would be in the wrong,” said the king.  “That is contrary to the laws of the Church and of the State; of the State, because you might deprive me of a subject; of the Church, because you would be sending an innocent to limbo unshriven.”

“Sire, I admire your profound wisdom, and I clearly perceive you to be the centre of all justice.”

“We can then only kill the knight—­Amen,” said constable, “Kill the horseman.  Now go quickly to the house of the suspected lord, but without letting yourself be bamboozled, do not forget what is due to his position.”

The provost, believing he would certainly be Chancellor of France if he properly acquitted himself of the task, went from the castle into the town, took his men, arrived at the nobleman’s residence, arranged his people outside, placed guards at all the doors, opened noiselessly by order of the king, climbs the stairs, asks the servants in which room their master is, puts them under arrest, goes up alone, and knocks at the door of the room where the two lovers are tilting in love’s tournament, and says to them—­

“Open, in the name of our lord the king!”

The lady recognised her husband’s voice, and could not repress a smile, thinking that she had not waited for the king’s orders to do what she had done.  But after laughter came terror.  Her lover took his cloak, threw it over him, and came to the door.  There, not knowing that his life was in peril, he declared that he belonged to the court and to the king’s household.

“Bah!” said the provost.  “I have a strict order from the king; and under pain of being treated as a rebel, you are bound instantly to receive me.”

Then the lord went out to him, still holding the door.

“What do you want here?”

“An enemy of our lord the king, whom we command you to deliver into our hands, otherwise you must follow me with him to the castle.”

This, thought the lover, is a piece of treachery on the part of the constable, whose proposition my dear mistress treated with scorn.  We must get out of this scrape in some way.  Then turning towards the provost, he went double or quits on the risk, reasoning thus with the cuckold:—­

“My friend, you know that I consider you but as gallant a man as it is possible for a provost to be in the discharge of his duty.  Now, can I have confidence in you?  I have here with me the fairest lady of the court.  As for Englishmen, I have not sufficient of one to make the breakfast of the constable, M. de Richmond, who sends you here.  This is (to be candid with you) the result of a bet made between myself and the constable, who shares it with the King.  Both have wagered that they know who is the lady of my heart; and I have wagered to the contrary.  No one more than myself hates the English, who took my estates in Piccadilly.  Is it not a knavish trick to put justice in motion against me?  Ho!  Ho! my lord constable, a