"Did not you thrash the watch and rob certain good citizens?--And who are the men placed under my guard, and who are such criminals that you have forbidden all communication with them? No girl was ever barred in with greater severity than these men, who have had neither food nor drink. Solern's Germans have not allowed any one to go near the room where you left them. Is it a joke? Or is it a serious matter?" "Yes," said the King, rousing himself from his reverie, "last night I went scampering over the roofs with Tavannes and the Gondis. I wanted to have the company of my old comrades in folly. But our legs are not what they were; we did not dare jump across the streets. However, we crossed two courtyards by leaping from roof to roof. The last time, however, when we alighted on a gable close by this, as we clung to the bar of a chimney, we decided, Tavannes and I, that we could not do it again. If either of us had been alone, he would not have tried it." "You were the first to jump, I will wager." The King smiled. "I know why you risk your life so." "Hah, fair sorceress!" "You are weary of life." "Begone with witchcraft! I am haunted by it!" said the King, grave once more. "My witchcraft is love," said she, with a smile. "Since the happy day when you first loved me, have I not always guessed your thoughts? And if you will suffer me to say so, the thoughts that torment you to-day are not worthy of a King." "Am I a King?" said he bitterly. "Can you not be King? What did Charles VII. do, whose name you bear? He listened to his mistress, my lord, and he won back his kingdom, which was invaded by the English then as it is now by the adherents of the New Religion. Your last act of State opened the road you must follow: Exterminate heresy." "You used to blame the stratagem," said Charles, "and now----" "It is accomplished," she put in. "Besides, I am of Madame Catherine's opinion. It was better to do it yourself than to leave it to the Guises." "Charles VII. had only men to fight against, and I have to battle with ideas," the King went on. "You may kill men; you cannot kill words! The Emperor Charles V. gave up the task; his son, Don Philip, is spending himself in the attempt. We shall die of it, we kings. On whom can I depend? On my right, with the Catholics I find the Guises threatening me; on my left, the Calvinists will never forgive the death of my poor Father Coligny, nor the blood-letting of August; besides, they want to be rid of us altogether. And in front of me, my mother----" "Arrest her; reign alone," said Marie, whispering in his ear. "I wanted to do so yesterday--but I do not to-day. You speak of it lightly enough." "There is no such great distance between the daughter of an apothecary and the daughter of a leech," said Marie Touchet, who would often laugh at the parentage falsely given her. The King knit his brows. "Marie, take no liberties. Catherine de' Medici is my mother, and you ought to tremble at----"