“Whom I hold prisoner.”

“Yes, but prisoner as he is, he was consecrated.”

“By whom was he consecrated?”

“By the Cardinal de Guise. Really, Henri, you have a fine police. They consecrate a king at Paris before thirty-three people, in the church of St. Genevieve, and you do not know of it!”

“Oh! and you do?”

“Certainly I do.”

“How can you know what I do not?”

“Ah! because M. de Morvilliers manages your police, and I am my own.”

The king frowned.

“Well, then, without counting Henri de Valois, we have François d’Anjou for king,” continued Chicot; “and then there is the Duc de Guise.”