"By the Holy Communion," said she, when Chicot had finished, "my brother writes well in Latin! What vehemence! what style! I should never have believed him capable of it. But do you not understand it, M. Chicot? I thought you were a good Latin scholar."
"Madame, I have forgotten it; all that I remember is that Latin has no article, that it has a vocative, and that the head belongs to the neuter gender."
"Really!" said some one, entering noiselessly and merrily. It was the king of Navarre. "The head is of the neuter gender, M. Chicot? Why is it not masculine?"
"Ah, sire, I do not know; it astonishes me as much as it does your majesty."
"It must be because it is sometimes the man, sometimes the woman that rules, according to their temperaments."
"That is an excellent reason, sire."
"I am glad to be a more profound philosopher than I thought—but to return to the letter. Madame, I burn to hear news from the court of France, and M. Chicot brings them to me in an unknown tongue."
"Do you not fear, sire, that the Latin is a bad prognostic?" said Chicot.
"M. Chicot is right, sire," said the queen.
"What!" said Henri, "does the letter contain anything disagreeable, and from your brother, who is so clever and polite?"