Immediately there was tumult in the hall.
"Long live Duke Roger! We will have no Duke but Duke Roger!"
"You have failed," Maurice whispered. "Let me go down, and shout your name with them, lest they hate me."
"Hear me!" Herrick cried. "Do you imagine I would vacate this throne for any man who was unworthy? I love this land too well for that. But this man is worthy. His claim is a prior claim to mine. He is your lawful Duke. Would you make a dishonorable man of me?"
"Yet hear me," cried Herrick. "I was an alien to you, born in another land, bred in another land, yet in the truest sense is Montvilliers my country. To the council I called together, to the young Count, I have made promises. In this state I have made my home, I will accept any honor this state shall choose to give me. I will walk a prince among you. I will stand by the throne. I will lend my counsel to your Duke. And if enemies thunder at our gates I will be in the midst of you to fight in their defence. All this have I promised, all this will I do for Montvilliers, my country--our country. My lords, men of Vayenne, give me leave to be an honorable man."
The shouting and the tumult had sunk to silence.
"You give me leave," said Herrick, and at a sign from him a priest mounted the dais, and stood by the chair. Almost before the crowd realized what he was doing, he had put to Maurice the three questions of the civil coronation.
Then Maurice turned toward that sea of faces.
"My lords, and men of Vayenne," he said, and his voice was firm and clear, "before you question me, hear me for a moment. If you accept me as Duke, and I have claimed the right by my birth, you call me to a position that I, of all the Dukes who have ever reigned in Montvilliers, shall find most difficult to fill. I cannot hope to fill the place of Roger Herrick. I would most willingly have stood among you and shouted his name with you; but as that may not be, I promise you that I will endeavor to rule by the example he has set. Help me, friends, to make this land worthy of the Duke it loses to-day."
The simple and boyish appeal had its effect, and if the shouting was not so spontaneous, so enthusiastic as it had been, it was genuine.
No voice broke the silence, and after a long pause Maurice went slowly to the chair, and seated himself, and the priest placed the golden circle upon his head, commanding that he should presently wear the iron crown in St. Etienne.