"Well," cried the marquis, while his friend ate, hastening as a matter of course, although his amiable and obliging host urged him to take his time, "what have you done to-day, my redoubtable scholar? Yes, I understand, pages of fine writing. Do not lose a line, I pray you! Those are words of refined gold which will go down to posterity; for these days of gloom will go hence into the dungeons of the past! Meanwhile, always conceal your sheets carefully in the secret drawer of the cupboard I have had placed in your chamber, when you do not write in mine." The mute made a sign that he had been writing in the marquis's study, and that his sheets were in a certain ebony casket where the marquis kept them. He made himself understood by gestures with great ease. "That is still better," continued Bois-Doré; "they are even safer there, as no woman enters the room. It is not that I distrust Bellinde, but she seems to me altogether too devoutly inclined since the arrival of this new rector whom Monseigneur de Bourges has sent us, and who is not to be compared, I fear, with our old friend the former curé, whom we owed to the last archbishop, Jean de Beaune. "Ah! if only we had retained that excellent prelate, with his flowing beard, his gigantic stature, his fat paunch, his Gargantuan appetite, his handsome face, his great mind and his vast learning! one of the shrewdest and best men in the kingdom, although, to look at him, one would have taken him for a _bon vivant_ and nothing more! "If you had come in his time, my dear friend, you would not have had to keep out of sight in this little hunting-box; you would not have been obliged to translate your name into French, to lock up your learning, to pass for a poor bagpiper, and to give people hereabout to understand that you were mutilated by the Huguenots; our excellent primate would have taken you under his protection, and you would have printed your noble thoughts at Bourges, to the great honor of your name and of our province; whereas we now have for archbishops none but Condé's too zealous servants. "Yes, yes, I learned some fine things to-day, at De Beuvre's, concerning that prince, a renegade to the faith of his fathers and the friendships of his youth! He inundates us with Jesuits, and, if poor Henri IV. should return to life, he would see some diverting masquerading! Monsieur de Sully is falling deeper and deeper into disgrace. Condé is purchasing from him by threats all his estates in Berry. Fancy! he has forced him to give up the grand-bailiwick and the command of the great tower! He is king of our province now, and people say that he dreams of becoming King of France. So, you see, affairs are going badly out-of-doors, and there is no safety except in our little fortresses, and that only on condition that we are prudent and wait patiently for the end of it all." [Illustration: _BOIS-DORÉ AND JOVELIN, HIS PROTÉGÉ._