Clement Marot, resplendent in a brand-new coat as _valet-de-chambre_ to the king, seemed fully as uncomfortable as on the day of his reception at the Hôtel d'Etampes. It was evident that he had in his pocket some poor fatherless sonnet, which he was seeking to dress in the guise of an impromptu conception. But alas! we all know that inspiration comes from on high, and we cannot control it. A ravishing idea had come to his mind unbidden upon the name of Madame Diane. He struggled against it, but the Muse is a mistress, not a lover; the lines formed themselves without his assistance, the rhymes matched themselves to one another as if by some magic power which he could not control. In fine, the wretched verses tormented him more than we can say. He was devoted to Madame d'Etampes beyond question, and to Marguerite de Navarre,--that too, was incontestable,--as was the fact that the Protestant party was the one toward which his sympathies leaned. It may even be that he was in search of an epigram against Madame Diane, when this madrigal in her honor came to his mind; but come it did. And how, we pray to know, when such superb lines were evolved in his brain in laudation of a Catholic, could he forbear, despite his zeal for the Protestant cause, to confide them in a whisper to some appreciative friend of literary tastes? That is what poor Marot did. But the injudicious Cardinal de Tournon, to whose bosom he intrusted his verses, deemed them so beautiful, so magnificent, that, in spite of himself, he passed them on to M. le Duc de Lorraine, who lost no time in telling Madame Diane of them. Instantly there was a great whispering among the partisans of the blue, in the midst of which Marot was imperatively summoned, and called upon to repeat them. The lilacs, when they saw Marot making his way through the crowd toward Madame Diane, hastened in the same direction, and crowded around the poet, enchanted and terrified at the same time. At last the Duchesse d'Etampes herself left her place, being curious, as she said, to see how "that knave Marot,[9] who had so much wit, would set about praising Madame Diane." Poor Clement Marot, as he was about to begin, after bowing low to Diane de Poitiers, who smiled upon him, turned his head slightly to glance about and caught the eye of Madame d'Etampes; she also smiled upon him, but the smile of the one was gracious, and of the other awe-inspiring. And so it was with a trembling and uncertain voice that poor Marot, burning up on one side, and frozen on the other, repeated the following verses:-- "Etre Phœbus bien souvent je désire, Non pour connaître herbes divinement, Car la douleur que mon cœur veut occire Ne se guérit par herbe aucunement. Non pour avoir ma place au firmament, Non pour son arc encontre Amour laisir, Car à mon roi ne veux être rebelle. Être Phœbus seulement je désir, Pour être aimé de Diane la belle."[10]