long journey."

The king stopped at these words from a habit of cruelty; then he
added:--

"You will leave to-night to attend to my affairs with the government
of Venice. You need be under no anxiety about your wife; I shall take
charge of her at Plessis; she will certainly be safe here. Henceforth
I shall watch over her with greater care than I have done since I
married her to you."

Hearing these words, Marie silently pressed her father's arm as if to
thank him for his mercy and goodness. As for Louis XI., he was
laughing to himself in his sleeve.



CHAPTER IV

THE HIDDEN TREASURE

Louis XI. was fond of intervening in the affairs of his subjects, and
he was always ready to mingle his royal majesty with the burgher life.
This taste, severely blamed by some historians, was really only a
passion for the "incognito," one of the greatest pleasures of princes,
--a sort of momentary abdication, which enables them to put a little
real life into their existence, made insipid by the lack of
opposition. Louis XI., however, played the incognito openly. On these
occasions he was always the good fellow, endeavoring to please the
people of the middle classes, whom he made his allies against