"Oho, this one is all right!" cried one, who might have been a clerk or a student; "he asks questions. You wish to know about Bussy, eh? You ought to have seen him gallop from the field without a scratch, while his enemies pulled themselves together and took to their heels." "What is that, over there?" I inquired, rising to my feet, and discovering that I was not badly hurt. "A dead man who was as much alive as any of us before he ran to help M. Bussy. It is always the outside man who gets the worst of it, merely for trying to be useful. There come the soldiers of the watch, after the fight is over." I walked over to the other group and knelt by the body on the ground. It was that of a gentleman whom I had sometimes seen in Bussy's company. He was indeed dead. The blood was already thickening about the hole that a sword had made in his doublet. The next day the whole court was talking of the wrath of the Duke of Anjou at this assault upon his first gentleman-in-waiting. I was ashamed of having profited by the influence of De Quelus, who, I found, had not recognized me on the previous evening. Anjou's rage continued deep. He showed it by absenting himself from the wedding of Saint-Luc, one of De Quelus's companions in the King's favor and in the attack on Bussy. Catherine, knowing how the King's authority was weakened by the squabbles between him and his brother, took the Duke out to Vincennes for a walk in the park and a dinner at the chateau, that his temper might cool. She persuaded him to show a conciliatory spirit and attend the marriage ball to be held that night in the great hall of the Louvre. This was more than she could persuade Marguerite to do, who accompanied mother and son to Vincennes, sharing the feelings of the Duke for three reasons,--her love for him, her hatred for her brother, the King, and her friendship for Bussy d'Amboise. It would have been well had the Duke been, like his sister, proof against his mother's persuasion. For, when he arrived at the ball, he was received by the King's gentlemen with derisive looks, and one of them, smiling insolently in the Duke's piggish, pockmarked face, said, "Doubtless you have come so late because the night is most favorable to your appearance." Suppose yourself in the Duke's place, and imagine his resentment. He turned white and left the ball. Catherine must have had to use her utmost powers to keep peace in the royal family the next day.