“Will you accompany me?”
“Thank you, I have just come from there.”
“But——”
“Oh! no; I, who have seen, do not need to be convinced. Go, my son, go. You disquiet yourself about your friends; you first pity them as if they were dead, and when you hear they are not dead, you are uneasy still——”
“You are intolerable, M. Chicot.”
“Would you have preferred that they should each have had seven or eight wounds by a rapier?”
“I should like to be able to depend on my friends.”
“Oh! ventre de biche, depend upon me; I am here, my son, only feed me. I want pheasant and truffles.”
Henri and his only friend went to bed early, the king still sighing.
The next day, at the petite levée of the king, MM. Quelus, Schomberg, Maugiron, and D’Epernon presented themselves. Chicot still slept. The king jumped from his bed in a fury, and tearing off the perfumed mask from his face, cried, “Go out from here.”