"Faith!" continued Charles, affecting kindness, "I did not think you were so popular, François, especially with the Huguenots. But they have sought you, and I have to confess to myself that I was mistaken. Besides, I could ask nothing better than to have one of my family—my brother who loves me and who is incapable of betraying me—at the head of a party which for thirty years has made war against us. This will quell everything as if by enchantment, to say nothing of the fact that we shall all be kings in the family. There will be no one except poor Henriot who will be nothing but my friend. But he is not ambitious and he shall take this title which no one else claims."
"Oh, sire! you are mistaken. I claim this title, and who has a better right to it than I? Henry is only your brother by marriage. I am your brother by blood, and more than this, my love—Sire, I beg you, keep me near you."
"No, no, François," replied Charles; "that would be to your unhappiness."
"How so?"
"For many reasons."
"But, sire, shall you ever find as faithful a companion as I am? From my childhood I have never left your Majesty."
"I know that very well; and sometimes I have wished you farther away."
"What does your Majesty mean?"
"Nothing, nothing; I understand myself. Oh, what fine hunts you will have there, François! How I envy you! Do you know that in those devilish mountains they hunt the bear as here we do the wild boar? You will send us all such magnificent skins! They hunt there with a dagger, you know; they wait for the animal, excite him, irritate him; he advances towards the hunter, and when within four feet of him he rises on his hind legs. It is then that they plunge the steel into his heart as Henry did to the boar at our last hunt. It is dangerous sport, but you are brave, François, and the danger will be a real pleasure for you."
"Ah! your Majesty increases my grief, for I shall hunt with you no more."