“Know, my brother,” says the King with a slight touch of irony in his tone, for he is displeased at the tender glances Charles is casting on his favourite, “know that this fair Duchess would have had me detain you here a prisoner until you had revoked the treaty of Madrid.” The Emperor starts visibly and frowns. “If you consider the advice good, your Majesty had better [Illustration: CHÂTEAU OF AMBOISE.] follow it,” he replies haughtily, turning away to address some nobles standing near. Some few days afterwards the Duchess gives a supper in her apartments, to which the Emperor and the Court are invited. After the reception, sinking on her knees, she presents his Majesty with rose-water in a gold embossed basin in which to wash his hands. Charles adroitly drops a large diamond ring into the basin. The Duchess stoops and places the vessel on the ground in order to pick up the jewel. “This ring, madame,” he says, and he speaks low, and leans forward in order to catch her ear, “is too becoming to that fair hand for me to remove it. It has itself sought a new possessor,” and he kisses her hand. “Keep it as a pledge of my admiration and my friendship.” The Duchess rises and makes a deep obeisance. Not only did she keep the ring, but she became so decided a partisan of this “_gaoler_,” that she is popularly accused of having betrayed Francis to the Emperor; specially in the subsequent wars between England, France, and Spain. CHAPTER VIII. LAST DAYS. Rambouillet is now a station on the railway between Versailles, Chartres, and Le Mans. It is a sunny little town, sloping to the south, in a sheltered hollow, over which the slanting roofs and conical turrets of the palace rise out of stately elms and spiked poplars. The principal façade of the château--which consists of two wings at right angles to each other, having at each corner a circular turret, surmounted by a spire--faces the mid-day sun. The ground lies low, and canals, extending in three directions, bordered by terraced walks and avenues, intersect the grassy lawns which lengthen into the tangled woodland of the surrounding forest. Opposite the château, on an islet, is a grotto called “La Marmite de Rabelais.” To the right, the three canals flow into a river, spanned by a low bridge, known as “the accursed bridge,” from some now obscure tradition foreboding evil to those who pass over it. On every other side, the trunks of venerable trees, their overarching branches closing above like a cloister--pillars of oak, elm, and ash--wind away into grassy meads and shady dingles, intersected by long rides cut straight through the forest, proper for the stag-hunts which have been held in this ancient manor since the Middle Ages. The château itself has now been modernised, save where one ivy-crowned round tower (the donjon of the mediæval fortress), in deep shadow, frowns an angry defiance to the stucco and whitewash of the flimsy modern façade.