himself on the pallet where so many poor wretches had wakened to their
doom; and this light-hearted heedlessness proved his ruin. While the
king's silversmith rode back from Plessis, accompanied by the grand
provost and his redoubtable archers. The false Goulenoire was being
watched by the old sister, seated on the corkscrew staircase oblivious
of the cold, and knitting socks for Cornelius.

The young man continued to dream of the secret delights of that
charming night, ignorant of the danger that was galloping towards him.
He saw himself on a cushion at the feet of the countess, his head on
her knees in the ardor of his love; he listened to the story of her
persecutions and the details of the count's tyranny; he grew pitiful
over the poor lady, who was, in truth, the best-loved natural daughter
of Louis XI. He promised her to go on the morrow and reveal her wrongs
to that terrible father; everything, he assured her, should be settled
as they wished, the marriage broken off, the husband banished,--and
all this within reach of that husband's sword, of which they might
both be the victims if the slightest noise awakened him. But in the
young man's dream the gleam of the lamp, the flame of their eyes, the
colors of the stuffs and the tapestries were more vivid, more of love
was in the air, more fire about them, than there had been in the
actual scene. The Marie of his sleep resisted far less than the living
Marie those adoring looks, those tender entreaties, those adroit
silences, those voluptuous solicitations, those false generosities,
which render the first moments of a passion so completely ardent, and
shed into the soul a fresh delirium at each new step in love.

Following the amorous jurisprudence of the period, Marie de
Saint-Vallier granted to her lover all the superficial rights of the
tender passion. She willingly allowed him to kiss her foot, her robe,