"Oh! your majesty cannot think so?"
"No, for you and your brother love me, and I love you. Apropos, do you know that poor Anne has written to me from Dieppe?"
"I did not, sire."
"Yes; but you know he did not like going?"
"He confided to me his regrets at leaving Paris."
"Yes; but do you know what he said? That there existed a man who would have regretted Paris much more; and that if I gave you this order you would die."
"Perhaps, sire."
"He said yet more, for your brother talks fast when he is not sulky; he said that if I had given such an order you would have disobeyed it."
"Your majesty was right to place my death before my disobedience; it would have been a greater grief to me to disobey than to die, and yet I should have disobeyed."
"You are a little mad, I think, my poor comte," said Henri.