open questions, that he knew naught of the views or intentions of his Sovereign; but that he was well aware Henry of England held in high esteem and love his princely cousin of Burgundy, and would never be found wanting, when required, to show him acts of friendship. Farther, he said, the Duke must apply to good Sir Philip de Morgan, a man well instructed, he believed, in all the King's purposes. Both the Count of Charolois and his father smiled at this answer, and turned a meaning look upon each other. "You have shown me, Sir Richard," said the Duke, "that you really do not know the King's mind on such subjects. Sir Philip de Morgan was his father's most trusted envoy; but is his own envoy not the most trusted? It is strange, your monarch's conduct in some things. He has added to his agents at our poor Court, a noble and wise man whom his father hated." "Because, my most redoubted lord," replied the young knight, "he judges differently, and is differently situated from his father. Henry IV. snatched the crown, as all men know, from a weak and vicious king, but found that those, who once had been his peers, were not willing to be his subjects. Though a mighty, wise, and politic prince, his life was a struggle, in which he might win victories indeed, and subdue enemies in the field, but he raised up new traitors in his own heart, new enemies within himself--I mean, my lord, jealousies and animosities. Our present King comes to the throne by succession; and his father has left him a crown divested of half its thorns. His nurture has been different too: never having suffered oppression, he has nothing to retaliate; never having struggled with foes, he has no fear of enmity. People say in my land, that one man builds a house and another dwells in it. So is it with every one who wins a throne; he has to raise and strengthen the fabric of his power, only to leave the perfect structure to another." The Duke leaned his head upon his hand, and thought profoundly. Ambitious visions, often roused by the very name of Henry IV., were reproved by the moral of his life; and though John the Bold might not part with them, he turned his thoughts to other channels, and strove to learn from Richard of Woodville the character and disposition of the English sovereign, if not his intentions and designs. On those points, the young knight was more open and unreserved. He painted the monarch as he really was, laughed when the Prince spoke of his youthful wildness, and said, "It was but a masking face, noble Duke, put on for sport, and, like a mummer's vizard, laid aside the moment it suited him to resume himself again. Those who judge the King from such traits as these will find themselves wofully deceived;" and he went on to paint Henry's energies of mind in terms which--though the Duke might attribute part of the praise to young enthusiasm--still left a very altered impression on the hearer's mind in regard to the real character of the English King.