Then the physician commenced to treat Leufroid to an oration, interlarded with Latin quotations and precious grains from Hippocrates, Galen, the School of Salerno, and others, in which he showed him how necessary to women was the proper cultivation of the field of Venus, and that there was great danger of death to queens of Spanish temperament, whose blood was excessively amorous.  He delivered himself of his arguments with great solemnity of feature, voice, and manner, in order to give the Sire de Montsoreau time to get to bed.  Then the queen took the same text to preach the king a sermon as long as his arm, and requested the loan of that limb, that the king might conduct her to her apartment instead of the poor invalid, who usually did so in order to avoid calumny.  When they were in the gallery where the Sire de Montsoreau resided, the queen said jokingly, “You should play a good trick on this Frenchman, who I would wager is with some lady, and not in his own room.  All the ladies of Court are in love with him, and there will be mischief some day through him.  If you had taken my advice he would not be in Sicily now.”

Leufroid went suddenly into Gauttier’s room, whom he found in a deep sleep, and snoring like a monk in Church.  The queen returned with the king, whom she took to her apartments, and whispered to one of the guards to send to her the lord whose place Pezare occupied.  Then, while she fondled the king, taking breakfast with him, she took the lord directly he came, into an adjoining room.

“Erect a gallows on the bastion,” said she, “then seize the knight Pezare, and manage so that he is hanged instantly, without giving time to write or say a single word on any subject whatsoever.  Such is our good pleasure and supreme command.”

Cataneo made no remark.  While Pezare was thinking to himself that his friend Gauttier would soon be minus his head, the Duke Cataneo came to seize and lead him on to bastion, from which he could see at the queen’s window the Sire de Montsoreau in company with the king, the queen, and the courtiers, and came to the conclusion that he who looked after the queen had a better chance in everything than he who looked after the king.

“My dear,” said the queen to her spouse, leading him to the window, “behold a traitor, who was endeavouring to deprive you of that which you hold dearest in the world, and I will give you the proofs when you have the leisure to study them.”

Montsoreau, seeing the preparations for the final ceremony, threw himself at the king’s feet, to obtain the pardon of him who was his mortal enemy, at which the king was much moved.

“Sire de Monsoreau,” said the queen, turning towards him with an angry look, “are you so bold as to oppose our will and pleasure?”

“You are a noble knight,” said the king, “but you do not know how bitter this Venetian was against you.”

Pezare was delicately strangled between the head and the shoulders, for the queen revealed his treacheries to the king, proving to him, by the declaration of a Lombard of the town, the enormous sums which Pezare had in the bank of Genoa, the whole of which were given up to Montsoreau.