"I am all attention, madame." My voice was as cold and measured as hers, but in my heart I began to wonder if I would leave the room for a journey to Montfaucon, with a halt by the way at the Chatelet. "But," she continued, "this man was not a mere bookworm nor a pedant, though Le Brun, whose voice was the voice of the Sorbonne then, prophesied a red hat for him. The red hat never came, nor did a marshal's baton, though Bevilacqua himself foretold the latter one day, as he brushed away a chalk mark just over the heart, where this young man's foil had touched him. Bevilacqua, mind you--the best sword in Europe!" I made as if about to speak. I was about to ask her bluntly what was to be the end of this, but with a wave of her hand she stayed me. "Permit me to continue, monsieur! This man, or boy as he was then, was true metal all through, but he was cursed with an open heart and wealth. Let us say that the course of Philosophy unsettled his mind, that the two campaigns in Italy brought but withered laurels. Let it be what you will, but back he came to Paris; and because his blood was warm, his spirits high, and his heart full of vanity and vain imaginings, the red wine was poured forth, the dice rattled, fair women smiled, and the gold crowns went. It was the old, old story; but the pity of it, monsieur, was that it was such pure good steel that was fretting thus to rust! Was it not?" She stopped, and looked at me again with her wonderful, searching eyes, and I braced myself, as one who was about to receive a death-blow. "At last the end came. This brave, gallant--fool--yes, that is the word--quarrelled with his best friend over a lady of the Marais--of the Marais, mind you! This friend wanted to save him from himself. The result was that those two, who had been like brothers, met each other sword in hand under the lee of the Louvre, and one--it was not the fool--fell." The words seemed to thunder in my ears. By some effort, I knew not how, I managed to restrain myself, and her cold, passionless voice went on: "After that came ruin--ruin utter and hopeless. And he who might have been anything died like a dog of the streets." Something like a gasp of relief broke from me; but the Medicis had not done yet. She rose swiftly, and for one brief second let her white hand, glittering with rings, rest on my shoulder. It was for a moment only, and then she let fall her hand, with a smile on her face. "They say, monsieur, that the age of miracles is past. Caraffa the Legate smiles if you mention them. But I--I believe, for I know. The dead have come back before. Why not again, Bertrand d'Orrain? Would you live again, and pledge your faith for that of the Bourgeois Broussel?" CHAPTER V THE PORTE ST. MICHEL