To tell the truth, I began to feel a trifle uncomfortable at this sudden change of manner in the vicomte, but Jean replied calmly: “How, monsieur? You would send us to the Hôtel de Ville, who come to offer our swords to the King? Believe me, they will be more useful than our heads sticking on the spikes of the Porte Royale.” Cipierre laughed once more. “Let me tell you, you would be safer in the Hôtel de Ville than out of it.” “With Monsieur Sarlaboux to guard us! My uncle, you are too kind! I little thought that Cipierre would ever serve the Guise.” The shot told, and the brown cheek of the old soldier became brick red. “_Mordieu!_ I serve the Guise! Since when? If the King, or even Madame Catherine, would but lift a finger, I--yes I, _mordieu!_----” Here Sancerre interrupted him, and, placing his hand on Cipierre’s shoulder, said with his quiet voice: “Steady, old friend! Even our heads are shaking. Be careful lest they fall! Come, messieurs! Let us to supper. The blood runs cold at my age, and I need something to warm it. And you, too, gentlemen, I doubt not, are famished.” For some little time the conversation confined itself to the event of the day, but when at last we were alone with the wine, Sancerre said, with a look at Cipierre: “Messieurs, we are alone now, and these walls are deaf, so we can speak freely. Let me tell you that the air of Orleans is unhealthy at present. Take my advice and go with the dawn.” “But, monsieur, we came, as I said, to offer our swords to the King.” “The King,” said Cipierre, “will soon need no earthly sword to protect him. He is dying.” “Dying! Is it as bad as that?” “Yes, Monsieur de Vibrac. It is a matter of days only, I fear, and after that--well, I am an old man, and I have served them for fifty years; but with his death it is an end to the Valois.” “Monsieur, how can that be? There are the other Princes.” “Leaves drop from a dead tree, monsieur.” “And to compare it with other things, I have known an eagle take a lamb before.” It was Marcilly who spoke, and, at this reference to the crest of Guise, Cipierre swore under his moustache; and I went on with the talk, saying: “It appears to me that the eagle must reckon with Bourbon.” “The account is almost made up,” said Sancerre; “the ambition of Catherine and the folly of the Constable have played well into the hands of Guise. The Bourbon is a dead legend, unless a miracle were to happen. Navarre is a fool and a sot. Montpensier has been bought with the pears of Touraine, and La Roche-sur-Yonne with the quinces of the Orléanais. There remains only Condé, and his head falls on the 10th. After that, Cipierre, you and I, and all of us, must bend the knee to King Francis the Third.” “Never!” exclaimed Cipierre; “never!” and he struck his open palm on the table. “Why! I remember Claude of Lorraine a mere gentleman of the Court--and his son King! Never!”