With the words the king pushed his daughter from his knee, and hurried
to the door of the room, but softly on tiptoe, making no noise. For
the last moment or two, the light from a window in the adjoining hall,
shining through a space below the door, had shown him the shadow of a
listener's foot projected on the floor of his chamber. He opened the
door abruptly, and surprised the Comte de Saint-Vallier eavesdropping.

"Pasques-Dieu!" he cried; "here's an audacity that deserves the axe."

"Sire," replied Saint-Vallier, haughtily, "I would prefer an axe at my
throat to the ornament of marriage on my head."

"You may have both," said Louis XI. "None of you are safe from such
infirmities, messieurs. Go into the farther hall. Conyngham,"
continued the king, addressing the captain of the guard, "you are
asleep! Where is Monsieur de Bridore? Why do you let me be approached
in this way? Pasques-Dieu! the lowest burgher in Tours is better
served than I am."

After scolding thus, Louis re-entered his room; but he took care to
draw the tapestried curtain, which made a second door, intended more
to stifle the words of the king than the whistling of the harsh north
wind.

"So, my daughter," he said, liking to play with her as a cat plays
with a mouse, "Georges d'Estouteville was your lover last night?"

"Oh, no, sire!"