He pondered a while, with the deep niche of thought running downward from mid-brow to the bridge of his nose, which they called "the King's council of war." "The girl is to be left in Blois," he muttered, as if to sum up the situation, "with this Professor of the Sorbonne--an old man, I suppose, and a priest. Very proper, very proper! My cousin, John Jackanapes, the young ex-Leaguer, goes to Court. They will make a Politique of him, a Valois-divine-right man--good again, for after this Valois-by-right-divine (save the mark!) comes not Master John d'Albret, but--the Bearnais! Yet--I do not know--perhaps, after all, he had better come with me. Then I shall hold one hostage the more! Let me see--let me see!" Here Jean-aux-Choux, who had at that time no great love for the Abbé John, but was an honest man, protested. "The time for crowning and seeking crowns is not yet," he said; "but the lad they call the Abbé John, though he fought a little on the Barricades, as young dogs do in a fray general, means no harm to Your Majesty, and will fight for you better than many who protest more!" "I believe you--I believe you!" said Henry. "If there is aught but eyes-making and laying-on of blows in him, I shall soon find it out, and he shall not trail a pike for long. He shall have his company, and that of the choicest of my army." Suddenly the pastor sprang up. He had a message to deliver, and being of the prevailing school of the mystics, he put it in the shape of a vision, as, indeed, it had appeared to him. "I see the earth dissolved," he cried, "the elements going up in a flaming fire, the inhabitants tormented and destroyed----" "Thank God! Thank God!" responded the deep, dominating voice of Jean-aux-Choux. The King requested to know the meaning of this unexpected thankfulness for universal destruction. "Anything to settle the League!" said Jean-aux-Choux. CHAPTER XII. THE WAKING OF THE BEARNAIS Jean-aux-Choux's deflection from his course created little remark and no sensation in the brilliant company which entered Blois in the wake of the royal favourite. D'Epernon had dismissed him from his mind. The Abbé John and--oh, shame!--the doctor of the Sorbonne were both thinking of Claire. So it came to pass, in revenge, that only Claire of all that almost royal cavalcade spared a thought to poor Jean-aux-Choux. As, however, Claire was the only one concerning whom Jean cared an apple-pip, he would have been perfectly content had he known. As it was, he waited till the Bearnais had betaken himself to his slumbers in Anthony Arpajon's best green-tapestried chamber, and then sailed out, hooded and robed like a Benedictine friar, to make his observations. In the town of Blois, as almost anywhere else in central and southern France, the ex-student of Geneva knew his way blindfold. He skirted the bare rocky side of the castle, whereon now stands the huge pavilion of Gaston of Orleans.