uttered were in Gascon: ‘Ho, Gaston, thou traitor! for thee, and to increase thy inheritance which would have come to thee, have I made war, and incurred the hatred of the kings of France, England, Spain, Navarre, and Aragon, and have borne myself gallantly against them; and thou wishest to murder me! Thy disposition must be infamously bad: know therefore thou shalt die with this blow.’ And leaping over the table, with a knife in his hand, he would have slain him; but the knights and squires again interfered, and on their knees said to him with tears, ‘Ah, ah! my lord, for Heaven’s sake, do not kill Gaston: you have no other child. Let him be confined, and inquire further into the business. Perhaps he was ignorant what was in the bag, and may therefore be blameless.’--‘Well,’ replied the count, ‘let him be confined in the dungeon, but so safely guarded that he may be forthcoming.’ The youth was therefore confined in this tower. I will tell you the cause of his death, since I have said so much on the subject. The Count de Foix had caused him to be confined in a room of the dungeon where was little light: there he remained for ten days. He scarcely ate or drank any thing of the food which was regularly brought to him, but threw it aside. The count would not permit any one to remain in the chamber to advise or comfort him: he therefore never put off the clothes he had on when he entered his prison. This made him melancholy, and vexed him, for he did not expect so much harshness: he therefore cursed the hour he was born, and lamented that he should come to such an end. On the day of his death, those who brought him food said, ‘Gaston, here is meat for you.’ He paid not any attention to it, but said, ‘Put it down.’ The person who served him, looking about, saw all the meat untouched that he had brought thither the last days: then, shutting the door, he went to the count, and said, ‘My lord, for God’s sake, look to your son: he is starving himself in his prison. I do not believe he has eaten any thing since his confinement; for I see all that I have carried to him lying on one side untouched.’ On hearing this, the count was enraged, and, without saying a word, left his apartment, and went to the prison of his son. In an evil hour, he had in his hand a knife, with which he had been paring and cleaning his nails; he held it by the blade so closely that scarcely the thickness of a groat appeared of the point, when, pushing aside the tapestry that covered the entrance of the prison, through ill luck, he hit his son on a vein of his throat, as he uttered, ‘Ha, traitor, why dost thou not eat?’ and instantly left the room, without saying or doing any thing more. The youth was much frightened at his father’s arrival, and withal exceedingly weak from fasting. The point of the knife, small as it was, cut a vein, which as soon as he felt he turned himself on one side, and died. The count had barely got back