And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmas the Queen-Regent sent for her. At the Hôtel de Saint-Pol matters were much the same. Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage over the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as Queen Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder sons; I might here trace out a curious similitude between the Valois and that dragon-spawned race which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, since the world was never at peace so long as any two of them existed. But King Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, esteeming her to be the wife of Presbyter John, the tyrant of Æthiopia. However, ingenuity had just suggested card-playing for King Charles’ amusement, and he paid little attention nowadays to any one save his opponent at this new game. So the French King chirped his senile jests over the card-table, while the King of England was besieging the French city of Rouen sedulously and without mercy. In late autumn an armament from Ireland joined Henry’s forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long knives. Katharine heard discreditable tales of these Irish, and reflected how gross are the exaggerations of rumor. In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of Rouen, having consumed their horses, and finding frogs and rats unpalatable, yielded the town. It was the Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine. “God is asleep,” the Queen said; “and while He nods, the Butcher of Agincourt has stolen our good city of Rouen.” She sat down and breathed heavily. “Never was any poor woman so pestered as I! The puddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and on Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his chief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a page carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. I put it to you, is that the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!” Dame Isabeau squealed on a sudden; “you are bruising me.” Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. “The King of England--a tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck--here--and with his left cheek scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as tapers?” She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited the answer, seeming not to breathe at all. “I believe so,” the Queen said, “and they say, too, that he has the damned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer.” “O God!” said Katharine.