The Dauphiness asked one of her attendant gentlemen for her purse, and gave the boys gold for Marie. They were to tell her to make her cottage comfortable with it. "As for yourselves," said she, "what did I hear just now that you wanted? Canary-birds, was it?" "Pigeons,"--"rabbits," said the boys; "but never mind them now." "O, but I do mind; you shall have some money for that too." The bailiff explained that it was not poverty, but the law which interfered with the boys' pleasures. Pigeons abounded in the wood, and could feed themselves; but it was against the law for any under the rank of a noble to keep them. The Dauphiness supposed this was all as it should be; for she was apt, through life, to believe that the nobles were by nature entitled to all things, and might give only such leavings as they did not wish for, to inferior people: yet she was pleased, and repaid the bailiff with a gracious smile, when he said that all laws melted away before the wishes of a royal bride, and that these peasant boys should have their rabbit-hutch and dove-cot henceforth, by special permission. None waved their caps more vehemently, none shouted "Long live the Dauphiness!" more vigorously, as the cavalcade set forth again, than Robin and Marc. When the last horseman vanished in the dust of the road, the attention of the crowd turned upon the favoured family of Randolphe. The poor man himself had retired overpowered, and no one could tell where he was. Charles was with Marie already. But the boys remained in the road; they were hoisted on the shoulders of their neighbours, having first delivered the precious gold pieces into the hands of the curd, lest they should lose Marie's treasure in the bustle. Robin would not be carried a step towards home till he had been allowed to speak to Jerome. He threw his arms round the neck of the good-natured soldier, and said that it was he who had made Marie's fortune. Then Jerome had to shake hands with every person in the crowd; and every man who had a house or cottage begged Jerome to be his guest. Jerome laughed, and said, that among so many he should not have known what to reply, and how to choose his host; but that he and his comrades were at Saint Menehould only for the occasion which was now passed, and before night they would be twenty miles off.