“See, your Majesty, there is some one else who agrees with me,” said the Duchess, laughing.
“I know,” replies Francis, “that my interests would almost force me to do as you desire, madame, but my honour is dearer to me than my interests. I am now at liberty,—I had rather the treaty of Madrid should stand for ever than countenance an act unworthy of ‘un roi chevalier.’ ”
Francis receives Charles V. at Amboise with ostentatious splendour. Aware of the repugnance of his royal guest to mount steps (the Spanish Emperor was early troubled by those attacks of gout that caused him at length to abdicate and to die of premature old age, at the monastery of San Juste), Francis caused an inclined plane or slope to be constructed in place of stairs within one of the round towers by which the Castle of Amboise, standing on a precipitous pile of rocks, is approached. Up this slope, which remains in excellent preservation, Charles ascends to the plateau on which the castle stands, seated in his ponderous coach, drawn by heavy horses, attended by guards and outriders. Elinor, his sister, the neglected Queen, as well as the favourite, Madame d’Étampes, are present at the fêtes given in honour of the Emperor. There are no secrets at Court, and Charles soon comes to know that the maîtresse en titre is his enemy. One evening, after a dance executed by Anne d’Étampes along with the ladies of the Court, in which she displayed the graces of her person, the Emperor approaches her.
“Madame,” he says, “it is only in France that I have seen such perfection of elegance and beauty. My brother, the King, would be the envy of all the sovereigns of Europe could they have witnessed what I have just seen. There is no ransom that I would accept for such a captive, had I the power of retaining her at Madrid.”
The Emperor’s eyes melt with admiration as he gazes on her.
The Duchess’s countenance beams with delight at the Emperor’s high-flown compliment.
The King approaches the spot where they stand.
“Know, my brother,” says the King with a slight touch of irony in his tone, for he is displeased at the tender glances Charles is casting on his favourite, “know that this fair Duchess would have had me detain you here a prisoner until you had revoked the treaty of Madrid.”
The Emperor starts visibly and frowns. “If you consider the advice good, your Majesty had better