"Let me ask counsel of the Doctor of the Sorbonne who is with me," Claire urged; "he is very wise, and----" "A Doctor of the Sorbonne!" cried Mistress Catherine--"impossible! Why, have they not cursed my brother, excommunicated him? They have even turned against their own King!" "Ay, but," said Claire, now eager to do her friend justice, "_my_ Doctor they have excommunicated also, because he withstood them in full Senatus. If he went back to Paris just now, they would hang him in his gown from the windows of his own class-room!" So in this way Doctor Anatole of the Sorbonne entered into the heretic councils of the Bearnais. Indeed, his was the idea which came like a lightning-flash of illumination upon the councils of Claire and the Princess Catherine. "What of La Reine Margot?" murmured the Professor, as if he had been speaking to himself; "is she of her husband's enemies?" "Nay--but," began the Princess, "that would be pouring oil upon fire!" "Where one fire has burned, there is little fuel for a second," suggested the Professor sententiously. "It is not the highest wisdom," said the careful Princess, "I fear it would not bring a blessing." "It is wisdom--if not the highest, my Lady Catherine," said the learned Doctor, "and if the matter succeeds--that, for your Cause, will be blessing enough!" "Then our Cause is not yours?" Catherine demanded sharply of him. The Professor smiled. "I am old, or you children think so. I have at least seen the vanity of persecuting any man for the thought that is in his heart. I was bred a Catholic, yet have been persecuted by my brethren for differing from them. But I agree that most honest folk of the realm are of your brother's party--the brave, the wise, the single of eye and heart. There never will be a king in France till the Bearnais reigns." The Professor spoke with a certain antique freedom, and the Princess, moved with a sudden impulse, laid her hand on his arm. "You are with us, then, if not of us?" she said. "I am of this young lady's party," smiled the Professor, turning to Claire, who had been listening quietly. There was a look of great love in his eyes. "Then I must needs make sure of her!" said the princess, putting her arm about Claire's waist. "Mistress Claire, vow that you will recruit for our army!" "Long ago one made me vow that vow!" said Claire. "I am not likely to betray the Cause for which my father died!" The face of the Princess Catherine grew grave. She was thinking of her own father. Anthony of Bourbon had not made so good an end. "I vowed my vow night and morning at my mother's knee," she said. "Thus it was she bade me promise, in these very words--'As I hope for Christ's dear mercy, I will live and I will die in the Faith given to the fishermen of Galilee. I will cleave to it, despising all other. Every believer, rich or poor, shall be my brother or my sister--they all princes and princesses in Jesus Christ, I only a poor sinner hoping in His mercy!'"