The king took and read it attentively. "And is this, my lord," he demanded, "in all due form, and ready for promulgation?"
"It is, sire," replied the chancellor: "wanting nothing but your majesty's signature and the seal."
Henry paused thoughtfully. "And is it," he asked, "and is it altogether, and in all parts, in strict accordance with the laws of France?"
"Que veut le roi, veut le loi," replied the chancellor. "What the king wills, the law wills;" and, with that tyrannical axiom, the attempted enforcement of which, in France, has caused more bloodshed than perhaps any other line that ever was written, John Bertrandi satisfied his conscience in sanctioning that which was contrary to the true spirit of all law.
Henry himself, however, was not satisfied! Although it is so easy for base counsellors—on whom be eternal shame—to find specious arguments in favour of those things which monarchs wish, however evil; and although it certainly was the case that the King of France himself, eagerly desiring the marriage of his natural daughter with the heir of Montmorency, had potent tempters in his own bosom to second the words of Bertrandi, still he was not satisfied that the retrospective act proposed to him was right. He looked first at the cardinal; next turned his eyes for a moment to the countenance of Diana of Poitiers; smiled doubtfully, and then said, "Put it up, my Lord Cardinal, put it up! I will take one day more to consider of it. Nay, look not grieved, fair dame, it shall have favourable consideration. Forget not that both our wishes run in the same way. Now let us speak of other things, Diana. Do you come to our gay hall to-night? Nay, you must not be absent," he added, seeing that the duchess looked down somewhat mournfully; "Henriette de la Mark must dance a gaillarde with her lover Damville."
"But can her lover ever be her husband?" demanded Diana, gazing reproachfully in the king's face; and then adding, with consummate skill in the management of that monarch, "It matters not! Since I have accomplished what I sought for the good of the country, even if I have failed in what I sought for my own pleasure, it matters not! My good Lord Chancellor, the king has been pleased to promise that powers shall be immediately granted to the noble constable of Montmorency to treat with Spain and with the empire for a good and perfect peace. Let it be said that this has been obtained by the solicitations of one who could obtain nothing for herself! but still, not to her honour let it be, but to the king's, inasmuch as he overcame in his own heart the love of glory and the thirst of victory for the sake of his good land of France. Will you, sire," she continued, "will you not order the chancellor at once to expedite the powers for the good constable? It cannot be done too rapidly."
"Why so?" demanded Henry. "There is, surely, no such haste."
"Because, sire," replied the lady, "there are two great and fortunate men, whose first wish must be to change your majesty's counsels in this regard. The conqueror of Calais may well have a say in matters of peace and war. The Cardinal of Lorraine is still at your majesty's ear. The purpose may evaporate and pass away, war be continued gloriously and long, and France be ruined."
"Nay, nay," replied the king, looking at the duchess reproachfully, "I am not so vacillating in my purposes. The Guises have not the influence you think."
"They have had the influence, sire," replied Diana, boldly, "they have had the influence to delay, for months, that very edict, drawn up by the orders of the king himself, for the security and protection of the French people, and to guard against the evils under which half of the noble families of France now smart, from alliances contracted in wild youth with races of inferior blood."