deep for them. Yet it was only this: to Monsieur, honour was more than a
pretty word. If he could not find his cause honest, he would not draw
his sword, though all the curs in the land called him coward.

Thus he stayed alone in the château for a long, irksome three years.
Monsieur was not of a reflective mind, content to stand aside and watch
while other men fought out great issues. It was a weary procession of
days to him. His only son, a lad a few years older than I, shared none
of his father's scruples and refused point-blank to follow him into
exile. He remained in Paris, where they knew how to be gay in spite of
sieges. Therefore I, the Forester's son, whom Monsieur took for a page,
had a chance to come closer to my lord and be more to him than a mere
servant, and I loved him as the dogs did. Aye, and admired him for a
fortitude almost more than human, in that he could hold himself passive
here in farthest Picardie, whilst in Normandie and Île de France battles
raged and towns fell and captains won glory.

At length, in the opening of the year 1593, M. le Duc began to have a
frequent visitor, a gentleman in no wise remarkable save for that he was
accorded long interviews with Monsieur. After these visits my lord was
always in great spirits, putting on frisky airs, like a stallion when he
is led out of the stable. I looked for something to happen, and it was
no surprise to me when M. le Duc announced one day, quite without
warning, that he was done with St. Quentin and would be off in the
morning for Mantes. I was in the seventh heaven of joy when he added
that he should take me with him. I knew the King of Navarre was at
Mantes--at last we were going to make history! There was no bound to my
golden dreams, no limit to my future.

But my house of cards suffered a rude tumble, and by no hand but my