"Aye, the boy in the street knows he has been with Navarre. For, mark you, all France has been wondering these many months where St. Quentin was coming out. His movements do not go unnoted like a yokel's. But, i' faith, he is not dull; he understands that well enough. Nay, 'tis my belief he came into the city in pure effrontery to show them how much he dared. He is a bold blade, your duke. And, mon dieu! it had its effect. For the Leaguers have been so agape with astonishment ever since that they have not raised a finger against him." "Yet you do not think him safe?" "Safe, say you? Safe! Pardieu! if you walked into a cage of lions, and they did not in the first instant eat you, would you therefore feel safe? He was stark mad to come to Paris. There is no man the League hates more, now they know they have lost him, and no man they can afford so ill to spare to King Henry. A great Catholic noble, he would be meat and drink to the Béarnais. He was mad to come here." "And yet nothing has happened to him." "Verily, fortune favours the brave. No, nothing has happened--yet. But I tell you true, Félix, I had rather be the poor innkeeper of the Amour de Dieu than stand in M. de St. Quentin's shoes." "I was talking with the men here last night," I said. "There was not one but had a good word for Monsieur." "Aye, so they have. They like his pluck. And if the League kills him it is quite on the cards that the people will rise up and make the town lively. But that will not profit M. de St. Quentin if he is dead." I would not be dampened, though, by an old croaker. "Nay, maître, if the people are with him, the League will not dare--" "There you fool yourself, my springald. If there is one thing which the nobles of the League neither know nor care about it is what the people think. They sit wrangling over their French League and their Spanish League, their kings and their princesses, and what this lord does and that lord threatens, and they give no heed at all to us--us, the people. But they will find out their mistake. Some day they will be taught that the nobles are not all of France. There will come a reckoning when more blood will flow in Paris than ever flowed on St. Bartholomew's day. They think we are chained down, do they? Pardieu! there will come a day!" I scarcely knew the man; his face was flushed, his eyes sparkling as if they saw more than the common room and mean street. But as I stared the glow faded, and he said in a lower tone: "At least, it will happen unless Henry of Navarre comes to save us from it. He is a good fellow, this Navarre." "They say he can never enter Paris." "They say lies. Let him but leave his heresies behind him and he can enter Paris to-morrow." "Mayenne does not think so." "No; but Mayenne knows little of what goes on. He does not keep an inn in the Rue Coupejarrets." He stated the fact so gravely that I had to laugh.