way.
"Sire, I would willingly pay a thousand gold crowns if I could have a

moment's talk with you; I have found the thief who stole the rubies
and all the jewels of the Duke of--"

"Let us hear about that," said Louis XI., going out into the courtyard
of Plessis, followed by his silversmith, Coyctier his physician,

Olivier de Daim, and the captain of his Scottish guard. "Tell me about
it. Another man to hang for you! Hola, Tristan!"

The grand provost, who was walking up and down the courtyard, came
with slow steps, like a dog who exhibits his fidelity. The group

paused under a tree. The king sat down on a bench and the courtiers
made a circle about him.

"Sire, a man who pretended to be a Fleming has got the better of me--"
began Cornelius.

"He must be crafty indeed, that fellow!" exclaimed Louis, wagging his
head.

"Oh, yes!" replied the silversmith, bitterly. "But methinks he'd have
snared you yourself. How could I distrust a beggar recommended to me

by Oosterlinck, one hundred thousand francs of whose money I hold in
my hands. I will wager the Jew's letter and seal were forged! In

short, sire, I found myself this morning robbed of those jewels you
admired so much. They have been ravished from me, sire! To steal the

jewels of the Elector of Bavaria! those scoundrels respect nothing!
they'll steal your kingdom if you don't take care. As soon as I missed

the jewels I went up to the room of that apprentice, who is,
assuredly, a past-master in thieving. This time we don't lack proof.

He had forced the lock of his door. But when he got back to his room,
the moon was down and he couldn't find all the screws. Happily, I felt

one under my feet when I entered the room. He was sound asleep, the
beggar, tired out. Just fancy, gentlemen, he got down into my strong-

room by the chimney. To-morrow, or to-night, rather, I'll roast him
alive. He had a silk ladder, and his clothes were covered with marks

of his clambering over the roof and down the chimney. He meant to stay
with me, and ruin me, night after night, the bold wretch! But where

are the jewels? The country-folks coming into town early saw him on
the roof. He must have had accomplices, who waited for him by that

embankment you have been making. Ah, sire, you are the accomplice of
fellows who come in boats; crack! they get off with everything, and

leave no traces! But we hold this fellow as a key, the bold scoundrel!
ah! a fine morsel he'll be for the gallows. With a little bit of

QUESTIONING beforehand, we shall know all. Why, the glory of your
reign is concerned in it! there ought not to be robbers in the land

under so great a king."
The king was not listening. He had fallen into one of those gloomy

meditations which became so frequent during the last years of his
life. A deep silence reigned.

"This is your business," he said at length to Tristan; "take you hold
of it."

He rose, walked a few steps away, and the courtiers left him alone.
Presently he saw Cornelius, mounted on his mule, riding away in

company with the grand provost.
"Where are those thousand gold crowns?" he called to him.

"Ah! sire, you are too great a king! there is no sum that can pay for
your justice."

Louis XI. smiled. The courtiers envied the frank speech and privileges
of the old silversmith, who promptly disappeared down the avenue of

young mulberries which led from Tours to Plessis.
Exhausted with fatigue, the young seigneur had indeed fallen soundly

asleep. Returning from his gallant adventure, he no longer felt the
same ardor and courage to defend himself against distant or imaginary

dangers with which he had rushed into the perils of the night. He had
even postponed till the morrow the cleaning of his soiled garments; a

great blunder, in which all else conspired. It was true that, lacking
the moonlight, he had missed finding all the screws of that cursed

lock; he had no patience to look for them. With the "laisser-aller" of
a tired man, he trusted to his luck, which had so far served him well.

He did, however, make a sort of compact with himself to awake at
daybreak, but the events of the day and the agitations of the night

did not allow him to keep faith with himself. Happiness is forgetful.
Cornelius no longer seemed formidable to the young man when he threw

himself on the pallet where so many poor wretches had wakened to their
doom; and this light-hearted heedlessness proved his ruin. While the

king's silversmith rode back from Plessis, accompanied by the grand
provost and his redoubtable archers. The false Goulenoire was being

watched by the old sister, seated on the corkscrew staircase oblivious
of the cold, and knitting socks for Cornelius.

The young man continued to dream of the secret delights of that
charming night, ignorant of the danger that was galloping towards him.

He saw himself on a cushion at the feet of the countess, his head on
her knees in the ardor of his love; he listened to the story of her

persecutions and the details of the count's tyranny; he grew pitiful
over the poor lady, who was, in truth, the best-loved natural daughter

of Louis XI. He promised her to go on the morrow and reveal her wrongs
to that terrible father; everything, he assured her, should be settled

as they wished, the marriage broken off, the husband banished,--and
all this within reach of that husband's sword, of which they might

both be the victims if the slightest noise awakened him. But in the
young man's dream the gleam of the lamp, the flame of their eyes, the

colors of the stuffs and the tapestries were more vivid, more of love
was in the air, more fire about them, than there had been in the

actual scene. The Marie of his sleep resisted far less than the living
Marie those adoring looks, those tender entreaties, those adroit

silences, those voluptuous solicitations, those false generosities,
which render the first moments of a passion so completely ardent, and

shed into the soul a fresh delirium at each new step in love.
Following the amorous jurisprudence of the period, Marie de Saint-

Vallier granted to her lover all the superficial rights of the tender
passion. She willingly allowed him to kiss her foot, her robe, her

hands, her throat; she avowed her love, she accepted the devotion and
life of her lover; she permitted him to die for her; she yielded to an

intoxication which the sternness of her semi-chastity increased; but
farther than that she would not go; and she made her deliverance the

price of the highest rewards of his love. In those days, in order to
dissolve a marriage it was necessary to go to Rome; to obtain the help

of certain cardinals, and to appear before the sovereign pontiff in
person armed with the approval of the king. Marie was firm in

maintaining her liberty to love, that she might sacrifice it to him
later. Nearly every woman in those days had sufficient power to

establish her empire over the heart of a man in a way to make that
passion the history of his whole life, the spring and principle of his

highest resolutions. Women were a power in France; they were so many
sovereigns; they had forms of noble pride; their lovers belonged to

them far more than they gave themselves to their lovers; often their
love cost blood, and to be their lover it was necessary to incur great

dangers. But the Marie of his dream made small defence against the
young seigneur's ardent entreaties. Which of the two was the reality?

Did the false apprentice in his dream see the true woman? Had he seen
in the hotel de Poitiers a lady masked in virtue? The question is

difficult to decide; and the honor of women demands that it be left,
as it were, in litigation.

At the moment when the Marie of the dream may have been about to
forget her high dignity as mistress, the lover felt himself seized by

an iron hand, and the sour voice of the grand provost said to him:--
"Come, midnight Christian, who seeks God on the roofs, wake up!"

The young man saw the black face of Tristan l'Hermite above him, and
recognized his sardonic smile; then, on the steps of the corkscrew

staircase, he saw Cornelius, his sister, and behind them the provost
guard. At that sight, and observing the diabolical faces expressing

either hatred or curiosity of persons whose business it was to hang
others, the so-called Philippe Goulenoire sat up on his pallet and