“Yes, you are right,” said the king, coming out of his reverie, “last night I did scour the roofs with Tavannes and the Gondis. I wanted to try my old follies with the old companions; but my legs were not what they once were; I did not dare leap the streets; though we did jump two alleys from one roof to the next. At the second, however, Tavannes and I, holding on to a chimney, agreed that we couldn’t do it again. If either of us had been alone we couldn’t have done it then.”
“I’ll wager that you sprang first.” The king smiled. “I know why you risk your life in that way.”
“Ah, sorceress! But I am being hunted down by sorcery,” said the king, resuming his anxious look.
“My sorcery is love,” she replied, smiling. “Since the happy day when you first loved me, have I not always divined your thoughts? And--if you will let me speak the truth--the thoughts which torture you to-day are not worthy of a king.”
“Cannot you be one? What did Charles VII. do? He listened to his mistress, monseigneur, and he reconquered his kingdom, invaded by the English as yours is now by the enemies of our religion. Your last _coup d’Etat_ showed you the course you have to follow. Exterminate heresy.”
“You blamed the Saint-Bartholomew,” said Charles, “and now you--”
“That is over,” she said; “besides, I agree with Madame Catherine that it was better to do it yourselves than let the Guises do it.”
“Charles VII. had only men to fight; I am face to face with ideas,” resumed the king. “We can kill men, but we can’t kill words! The Emperor Charles V. gave up the attempt; his son Philip has spent his strength upon it; we shall all perish, we kings, in that struggle. On whom can I rely? To right, among the Catholics, I find the Guises, who are my enemies; to left, the Calvinists, who will never forgive me the death of my poor old Coligny, nor that bloody day in August; besides, they want to suppress the throne; and in front of me what have I?--my mother!”
“Arrest her; reign alone,” said Marie in a low voice, whispering in his ear.
“I meant to do so yesterday; to-day I no longer intend it. You speak of it rather coolly.”
“Between the daughter of an apothecary and that of a doctor there is no great difference,” replied Touchet, always ready to laugh at the false origin attributed to her.