"You must bring back my master!" said the King, not listening very carefully to the Queen, on finding her speech full of reproofs. "Yes, you shall have him," replied she. "But not he, nor even that rough Cypierre, can teach you to reign." "It is you, my dear mother," he exclaimed, mollified by his triumph, and throwing off the threatening and sly expression which Nature had stamped on his physiognomy. Catherine sent Gondi to find the High Almoner. When the Florentine had discovered Amyot's retreat, and the Bishop heard that the courtier came from the Queen, he was seized with terror, and would not come out of the Abbey. In this extremity Catherine was obliged to write to him herself, and in such terms that he came back and obtained the promise of her support, but only on condition of his obeying her blindly in all that concerned the King. This little domestic tempest being lulled, Catherine came back to the Louvre. It was more than a year since she had left it, and she now held council with her nearest friends as to how she was to deal with the young King, whom Cypierre had complimented on his firmness. "What is to be done?" said she to the two Gondis, Ruggieri, Birague, and Chiverni, now tutor and Chancellor to the Duc d'Anjou. "First of all," said Birague, "get rid of Cypierre; he is not a courtier, he will never fall in with your views, and will think he is doing his duty by opposing you." "Whom can I trust?" cried the Queen. "One of us," said Birague. "By my faith," said Gondi, "I promise to make the King as pliant as the King of Navarre." "You let the late King die to save your other children; well, then, do as the grand Signors of Constantinople do: crush this one's passions and fancies," said Albert de Gondi. "He likes the arts, poetry, hunting, and a little girl he saw at Orleans; all this is quite enough to occupy him." "Then you would be the King's tutor?" said Catherine, to the more capable of the two Gondis. "If you will give me the necessary authority; it might be well to make me a Marshal of France and a Duke. Cypierre is too small a man to continue in that office. Henceforth the tutor of a King of France should be a Marshal and Duke, or something of the kind----" "He is right," said Birague. "Poetry and hunting," said Catherine, in a dreamy voice. "We will hunt and make love!" cried Gondi. "Besides," said Chiverni, "you are sure of Amyot, who will always be afraid of a drugged cup in case of disobedience, and with Gondi you will have the King in leading strings." "You were resigned to the loss of one son to save the three others and the Crown; now you must have the courage to keep this one _occupied_ to save the kingdom--to save yourself perhaps," said Ruggieri. "He has just offended me deeply," said Catherine. "He does not know how much he owes you; and if he did, you would not be safe," Birague replied with grave emphasis.