There was wit, too, of a more practical nature, among these knights of the Holy Spirit. The royal founder used occasionally to retire with the knights to Vincennes. There they shut themselves up, as they said, to fast and repent; but, as the world said, to indulge in pleasures of a very monster-like quality. The royal dukes of a later period in France used to atone for inordinate vice by making their mistresses fast; the royal duchesses settled their little balance with Heaven, by making their servants fast. It appears that there was nothing of this vicarious penance in the case of Henri III. and his knights. Not that all the knights willingly submitted to penance which mortified their appetites. Charles de la Marck, Count of Braine. was one of those impatient penitents. On a day on which rigid abstinence had been enjoined, the king was passing by the count’s apartment, when he was struck by a savory smell. King as he was, he immediately applied his eye to the keyhole of the count’s door, and beheld the knight blowing lustily at a little fire under a chafing-dish, in which there were two superb soles frying in savory sauce. “Brother knight, brother knight,” exclaimed Henri, “I see all and smell much. Art thou not ashamed thus to transgress the holy rule?”--“I should be much more so,” said the count, opening the door, “if I made an enemy of my stomach. I can bear this sort of abstinence no longer. Here am I, knight and gentleman, doubly famished in that double character, and I have been, in my own proper person, to buy these soles, and purchase what was necessary for the most delicious of sauces: I am cooking them myself, and they are now done to a turn. Cooked _aux gratins_, your majesty yourself can not surely resist tasting. Allow me”--and he pushed forward a chair, in which Henri seated himself, and to the “soles _aux gratins_,” such as Vefour and Very never dished up, the monarch sat down, and with the hungry count, discussed the merits of fasting, while they enjoyed the fish. It was but meagre fare after all; and probably the repast did not conclude there.