While Charles and Beatrix were attending at Malines, as important witnesses in this case, what should unexpectedly arrive but a brief from the Pope, directing the archbishop to proclaim the judgment pronounced on that half-forgotten application of Le Moleur's and Cheminot's! It had taken His Holiness some years to come to a decision even on the preliminary point, that of the marriage with Beatrix; on the main question, the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole, the judgment was still silent. But Charles's marriage with Beatrix the document declared entirely illegal and invalid, formally threatening both parties concerned with major excommunication if they did not at once separate and thereafter continue apart, and, moreover, within a given time, purge themselves by a public and humiliating penance. To Beatrix this judgment came as a crushing blow. However, she yielded prompt obedience, removing at once to the distant Hombourg Haut, near Saint-Avold. Charles evidently cared very much less about the separation, however little he might relish the idea of a penance. It looks very much as if he had already grown a little tired of the lovely Beatrix. She was still very beautiful, and had any amount of love-making left in her. Her little amour with Charles II. was still to come; and that portrait to be seen at Windsor, which so much enamoured Flecknoe, actually shows her as she was a little later. However, the _toujours perdrix_ of one particular beauty had evidently begun to pall upon Charles's exacting taste. He managed very soon to find some cheering consolation for his loss, to the infinite entertainment of the gay Court of Brussels--which delighted in scandal, and was constantly on the look out for some fresh amusement. Charles provided such, very opportunely, by a quite unexpected new amour, which was certainly not wanting in originality. Charles suddenly fell over head and ears in love with the very _bourgeoise_ daughter of the Burgomaster of Brussels. He pressed his heart and hand upon her again and again. No effort was too great for him to make in prosecution of his suit, no expense too lavish. The girl found herself serenaded, _fêted_, asked to all sorts of festivities--tournaments, concerts, balls--all arranged specifically in her honour. She found jewellery showered upon her. And, to secure her good will, the proud Carlovingian Duke even condescended to compete with the humble burghers at the popular _kermesse_, in the cross-bow shooting at the "papegay," which, crack marksman that he was, he brought down in brilliant style, thereby constituting himself "papegay-king" for the year. That dignity imposed upon him the obligation of treating all the burghers and their young women to a flow of liquor--which liquor he did not stint--and, moreover, of holding a triumphal progress through the town--which he magnified into a sort of Lord Mayor's procession, himself appearing in the character of his own