“Yes, it is my manner, and I think it is a good one.”
“Good, indeed!”
“I maintain it, and I will prove it.”
“I am curious to hear this proof.”
“It is easy; but first, we have committed a great folly.”
“How so?” cried Henri, struck by the agreement between Chicot and his mother.
“Yes,” replied Chicot, “your friends are crying through the city, ‘Death to the Angevins!’ and now that I reflect, it was never proved that they had anything to do with the affair. And your friends, crying thus through the city, will raise that nice little civil war of which MM. de Guise have so much need, and which they did not succeed in raising for themselves. Besides which, your friends may get killed, which would not displease me, I confess, but which would afflict you, or else they will chase all the Angevins from the city, which will please M. d’Anjou enormously.”
“Do you think things are so bad?”
“Yes, if not worse.”
“But all this does not explain what you do here, sitting on a stone.”