He appeared at the next royal levée, and renewed his petition; his Majesty was gentle but expostulatory. He sought to penetrate once more into the Louvre garden, generally open to men of piety, but, being repulsed by the guard, took his station at likely exits, and clamoured when the King went by. His persecution of his monarch became by degrees persistent and intolerable. Louis grew to dread the inevitable apparition with its wail, monotonous and eternal, “Restore to me my fold!” The creature got upon his nerves, and even threatened to spoil his sleep. Then one day, quite suddenly and characteristically, he resolved to rid himself of the incubus. He summoned his provost-marshal, Tristan l’Hermite, and sitting humped in his chair, closed one eye, and focussed the other shrewdly on his favourite.
“Tristan,” he said, “divinity utters itself in the mouths of kings—is it not so?”
The officer, a thick-set, beetle-browed boar of a man, whose body was encased in steel covered by a blue tabard embroidered with fleurs-de-lys, grunted in reply. Louis remained silent.
“Why waste words, gossip?” said Tristan. “Tell me the job and the man.”
His eyes, red and projecting, rolled in their sockets. He gave his flock of coarse hair a contemptuous shake.
“Wherefore,” went on the other, contemplative, “to traverse a royal decision is to commit treason against Heaven—a crime even the more abhorrent in one who professes himself a minister of religion.”
“The man?” repeated Tristan.
“Hast thou heard speak, Tristan,” said the King, “of this troublesome prior of St. Come?”
The Provost-Marshal turned and made for the door.
“Tristan!” cried the King; but without effect. He uncoiled himself with a smile. “Pasque-Dieu,” he said, “what a precipitate fellow! But at least I can sleep to-night with a peaceful conscience.”