Badehorn had dismounted ere this, and Marcilly jumped on his nag. Bidding him lead the lame horse to the Green Man, at Chenonceaux, we pushed on with all the speed the country permitted, and in a little under an hour were in the parlor of the inn, awaiting the coming of Badehorn and the return of a messenger whom we had sent for horses. I forced myself to eat something, and while my friend lay back in his chair and exercised his patience by staring at the logs crackling in the fireplace, I stretched myself on a settee near the window and looked wearily out through the glazing. The window opened on the little square of the village, now crowded with people, for it was market day, and beyond rose the gray donjon, the towers and galleries of the château of Chenonceaux, built by Bohier, the Receiver-General of Normandy, on the remains of an old fifteenth-century fortress. The financier died before the building was completed, and his son, the Baron de St. Cyergue, a man of egregious vanity, made the château a gift to La Valentinois, who, on her downfall, was forced to part with it for a song to Catherine de Medicis, for whom it was held now by Monsieur de Rabutin, a gentleman of the Tarantaise. I had not met St. Cyergue since the affair in the Bouton d’Or. News had, however, reached us that having totally lost his fortune, he had retired to a small house he owned at Chenonceaux; though whenever he could scrape together a hundred crowns or so, he returned to take his place among the hangers-on of the Court. So, while idly recalling these things, I dropped off to sleep, until I was suddenly aroused by a loud laugh, and, starting up, saw a man, extravagantly dressed, engaged in converse with Marcilly. It needed but a look at the vacant face, the protruding eyes, the puffed breeches, the scarlet cloak, and the faded gold lace of the coat-of-arms embroidered on the left breast of his pourpoint, to tell it was St. Cyergue himself. “Ah, ha!” he exclaimed. “So you are awake at last! Faith! I thought you were sleeping as soundly as poor Lignières does at St. Merri--we buried him there, you know.” “Let that matter rest, St. Cyergue,” I said, but he went on: “It was neat--devilish neat, Marcilly. _Ca! Ca!_ And he had our wit, our duellist Lignières, spitted like a lark, and he never spoke again. I only saw that thrust equalled once, when Richelieu--the man they call ‘The Monk’----” “The Baron has just left the Court,” interrupted Marcilly, forcing a change in the talk. “He confirms what we heard about Condé.” “That is good news if it remains true. And how long have you been here, Baron?” “I arrived but last night, though it seems a year. I lost a thousand écus of the sun to de Billy, and it has become necessary to take a change of air until my rents come in.” “St. Cyergue puts it down to the écus, Gaspard,” said Marcilly, “but we know better. A few paltry crowns would not drive the Baron from Court. Come, tell us, Baron.”