"That case is foreseen."
"And, if they should be condemned, none will be found to execute them. It will be a second edition of the affair at Chalais. Remember, it was at Nantes that that took place, Dubois. I tell you, Bretons are unaccommodating."
"This is a point to settle with the commissioners, of whom this is a list. I will send three or four executioners from Paris—men accustomed to noble deeds—who have preserved the traditions of the Cardinal de Richelieu."
"Good God!" cried the regent; "bloodshed under my reign—I do not like it. As to Count Horn, he was a thief, and Duchaffour a wretch; but I am tender, Dubois."
"No, monseigneur, you are not tender; you are uncertain and weak; I told you so when you were my scholar—I tell you so again, now that you are my master. When you were christened, your godmothers, the fairies, gave you every gift of nature—strength, beauty, courage, and mind: only one—whom they did not invite because she was old, and they probably foresaw your aversion to old women—arrived the last, and gave you weakness—that spoiled all."
"And who told you this pretty tale? Perrault or St. Simon?"
"The princess palatine, your mother."
The regent laughed.
"And whom shall we choose for the commission?" asked he.
"Oh, monseigneur, people of mind and resolution, be sure; not provincials; not very sensitive to family scenes; men old in the dust of tribunals, whom the Breton men will not frighten with their fierce eyes, nor the Breton women seduce with their beautiful languid ones."