"Hear me, my good young friend," replied Villequier. "They are not so slight as you imagine. In the first place, we have for some time held in France that rash and troublesome persons who oppose our progress, or thwart our desires, are to be encountered for a certain time by the arts of policy and by every soft and quiet inducement we may hold out to them. When we have been patient as long as possible, and find that they are not to be frustrated by any ordinary means, it becomes necessary to put a stop to their opposition, and to remove them from the way in which we are proceeding. Now, the Duke of Guise has been very busily teaching a number of persons, both high and low, that his prolonged life would be extremely inconvenient to them. Biron does not love him, D'Aumont abominates him, D'O. has good cause to wish him a step beyond Jerusalem; Henry of Navarre has in him a bitter enemy; the rash, vain, Count of Soissons an obstacle and a stumbling-block; and though I am his humble servant, and the King his very good friend, yet both Henry and myself could do quite as well without him. Besides these, there are at least ten thousand more in France who would walk with their beavers far more gallantly, if there were a Guise the less in the world; so that I say, on very probable reasoning, that I would fully as soon reckon upon the life of a man of eighty, as I would upon the robust, powerful existence of Henry of Guise even for an hour. But putting all that aside. Monsieur de Montsoreau, taking it for granted that he lives, what can I do but what I propose? You have the King's promise and mine in writing; we can do no more. The cause is before the Parliament, and Henry, restrained in his own court, at war with his own subjects, and driven from his own capital, depend upon it, will never sign your contract of marriage with Mademoiselle de Clairvaut till every other hope has failed; ay, and what is more, till he sees before him a very very great object to be gained by so doing." "A fresh object you mean, Monsieur de Villequier," replied Gaspar de Montsoreau. "I know that this is the way in which kings and statesmen deal with men less wise than themselves. There must be always one object secured to obtain the promise, and another to obtain the performance. Pray, what is the new object, Monsieur de Villequier? and is it sure, that if an object be held out of sufficient worth and importance, the King will not find some specious reason for drawing back, or that some new irresistible obstacle does not present itself?"