Had this jester not been a man of singular ability, the King would not have employed him on diplomatic missions of some delicacy and difficulty. He went on such missions to Henri of Navarre; and Dumas represents him to us as saving the life of the Béarnais, in his first fight at Cahors, where Henri’s bold soul carried his then cowardly body into the very thickest of the _mêlée_. It is said to have been on this occasion that the King of Navarre induced Chicot to promise to enter his service whenever his old master, Henri III., should die. Flögel, Cardinal Perron, and Sully, only mention Chicot as the court jester of Henri IV.; he was however in the service of both Kings. He was as familiar with his new master as with the old one, and the Bourbon King was as indulgent to him as the old Valois monarch had been. His boldness was especially exhibited in satirical allusions to the King of Navarre being of the reformed religion, and to suggestions touching political matters generally. In the ‘Mémoires pour l’Histoire de France’ (vol. ii. 72), it is stated that when the Duke of Parma came to France, Chicot said to the King, before all the courtiers, “My friend, I see very well that all you do will signify nothing, unless you either turn Catholic, or pretend you are one.” Another time, Chicot said to him, “I am convinced that to be peaceably King of France, you would give both Papists and Huguenots to Lucifer’s clerk.” “I am not surprised,” said he another time to his Majesty, “that so many persons desire to be Kings. It is a good trade, and by working at it only an hour in a day, one may make sufficient provision for the rest of the week, without being obliged to one’s neighbours. But, for Heaven’s sake! my friend, take care, and keep out of the hands of the Leaguers, for if you should fall into them, they would hang you up like a hog’s pudding, and write upon your gibbet--‘Good lodgings to let, at the Crown of France and Navarre.’”