might be, discredited, but also of sending the Chevalier himself
to the gallows he had so richly earned.




CHAPTER XXI

LOUIS THE JUST


"For me," said the King, "these depositions were not necessary.
Your word, my dear Marcel, would have sufficed. For the courts,
however, perhaps it is well that you have had them taken;
moreover, they form a valuable corroboration of the treason which
you lay to the charge of Monsieur de Saint-Eustache."

We were standing - at least, La Fosse and I were standing, Louis
XIII sat - in a room, of the Palace of Toulouse, where I had had
the honour of being brought before His Majesty. La Fosse was
there, because it would seem that the King had grown fond of him,
and could not be without him since his coming to Toulouse.

His Majesty was, as usual, so dull and weary - not even roused by
the approaching trial of Montmorency, which was the main business
that had brought him South that even the company of this vapid,
shallow, but irrepressibly good-humoured La Fosse, with his
everlasting mythology, proved a thing desirable.

"I will see," said Louis, "that your friend the Chevalier is placed