第44章 THE COURT(5)

"What are you reading there, madame?" asked Amyot of the Comtesse de Fiesque.

"'Amadis de Gaule,' by the Seigneur des Essarts, commissary in ordinary to the king's artillery," she replied.

"A charming work," remarked the beautiful girl who was afterwards so celebrated under the name of Fosseuse when she was lady of honor to Queen Marguerite of Navarre.

"The style is a novelty in form," said Amyot. "Do you accept such barbarisms?" he added, addressing Brantome.

"They please the ladies, you know," said Brantome, crossing over to the Duchesse de Guise, who held the "Decamerone" in her hand. "Some of the women of your house must appear in the book, madame," he said. "It is a pity that the Sieur Boccaccio did not live in our day; he would have known plenty of ladies to swell his volume--""How shrewd that Monsieur de Brantome is," said the beautiful Mademoiselle de Limueil to the Comtesse de Fiesque; "he came to us first, but he means to remain in the Guise quarters.""Hush!" said Madame de Fiesque glancing at the beautiful Limueil.

"Attend to what concerns yourself."

The young girl turned her eyes to the door. She was expecting Sardini, a noble Italian, with whom the queen-mother, her relative, married her after an "accident" which happened in the dressing-room of Catherine de' Medici herself; but which the young lady won the honor of having a queen as midwife.

"By the holy Alipantin! Mademoiselle Davila seems to me prettier and prettier every morning," said Monsieur de Robertet, secretary of State, bowing to the ladies of the queen-mother.

The arrival of the secretary of State made no commotion whatever, though his office was precisely what that of a minister is in these days.

"If you really think so, monsieur," said the beauty, "lend me the squib which was written against the Messieurs de Guise; I know it was lent to you.""It is no longer in my possession," replied the secretary, turning round to bow to the Duchesse de Guise.

"I have it," said the Comte de Grammont to Mademoiselle Davila, "but Iwill give it you on one condition only."

"Condition! fie!" exclaimed Madame de Fiesque.

"You don't know what it is," replied Grammont.

"Oh! it is easy to guess," remarked la Limueil.

The Italian custom of calling ladies, as peasants call their wives, "/la/ Such-a-one" was then the fashion at the court of France.

"You are mistaken," said the count, hastily, "the matter is simply to give a letter from my cousin de Jarnac to one of the maids on the other side, Mademoiselle de Matha.""You must not compromise my young ladies," said the Comtesse de Fiesque. "I will deliver the letter myself.--Do you know what is happening in Flanders?" she continued, turning to the Cardinal de Tournon. "It seems that Monsieur d'Egmont is given to surprises.""He and the Prince of Orange," remarked Cypierre, with a significant shrug of his shoulders.

"The Duke of Alba and Cardinal Granvelle are going there, are they not, monsieur?" said Amyot to the Cardinal de Tournon, who remained standing, gloomy and anxious between the opposing groups after his conversation with the chancellor.

"Happily we are at peace; we need only conquer heresy on the stage,"remarked the young Duc d'Orleans, alluding to a part he had played the night before,--that of a knight subduing a hydra which bore upon its foreheads the word "Reformation."Catherine de' Medici, agreeing in this with her daughter-in-law, had allowed a theatre to be made of the great hall (afterwards arranged for the Parliament of Blois), which, as we have already said, connected the chateau of Francois I. with that of Louis XII.