“You have come the right road for preferment, parson,” said he. “You are going to be exalted like Haman.”
THE DUC DE GUISE
The Queen-Mother, Catherine de Medici, was giving a ball, characteristically insolent in its conception, at the royal palace of the Louvre. All the principal ladies of the Court were invited to attend it, and each was to be accompanied by her cavaliere-servente, wearing her mistress’s livery.
“I beg you, madam, to excuse yourself,” said the Duc de Guise to his wife. “It is a censorious age, and your condescensions might be misconstrued.”
He was a tall, well-figured man, with a somewhat supercilious expression, emphasised by a prominent underlip. The cut of his face, cold and aquiline, against his ruff, suggested a cameo in high relief. His beard, of a bright brown, was “stilettoed”; a scar defaced his left cheek near the eye, and, in its fading or flushing, betrayed the degree of his emotions. It was curiously in evidence now, though his voice and manner kept their measured quiet.
“Condescensions—to whom, mon chéri?” asked the Duchess, whisking round as she sat under the hands of her tire-woman. She was a beauty, once a princess of Cleves, and as saucy and wilful as she was bewitching. Her husband, with a wave of his hand, dismissed the attendant.
“To M. Saint-Mesgrin, madam,” he said.
She laughed. “Thou hast named my chosen cavalier, Henri. What an odd chance!”
Saint-Mesgrin was one of the King’s mignons, and his name and the lovely Duchess’s were too often associated of late for the Guise’s tolerance.
“Is it not?” he said. “I cannot imagine what suggested it.”