"That is nonsense, De Terrail," replied Lorenzo: "the Duke of Orleans is nearer to the dukedom than I am."
"Ay, but policy might keep the duke out and favour you," said Bayard. "It does not do to make a subject too powerful. But what are they about now? What packet is that which Breconnel is opening and laying its contents before the king?"
"That looks like the papal seal pendant from it," replied Visconti. "Hark! the bishop is about to read it aloud."
The conversation of the two young men had been carried on in a low tone, and many another whispered talk had been going on amongst the courtiers, drowned by the louder sounds which had issued from the immediate neighbourhood of the table at which the king sat; but the moment that the Bishop of St. Malo began to read, or rather to translate aloud, the letters which he held in his hand, and which were written in Latin, every tongue was stilled, and each ear bent to hear.
"His Holiness greets your Majesty well," said the bishop; "but he positively prohibits your advance to Rome under pain of the major censures of the Church. These are his words," and he proceeded in a somewhat stumbling and awkward manner to decipher and render into French the pontifical missive.
The despatch was rather diffuse and lengthy, and while the good bishop went on, an elderly man plainly habited in black, came round and whispered something several times in the king's ear. Charles turned towards him and listened while the prelate went on; and at last the monarch replied, saying something which was not heard by others, and adding a very significant sign. The secret adviser withdrew at once into an inner apartment of the tent, from the main chamber of which it was separated by a crimson curtain. He returned in a moment with a large book, on the wood and velvet cover of which reposed a crucifix and a rosary. The Bishop of St. Malo read on; but without noticing him, the man in black knelt before the king, who immediately laid his hand on the crucifix, and then, after murmuring some words in a subdued tone, yet not quite in a whisper, raised the volume to his lips and kissed it with every appearance of reverence.
The book, the crucifix, and the rosary were then removed as silently as they had been brought, and the reading of the papal brief proceeded without interruption. When the prelate had concluded the reading of the missive which threatened the monarch of France, the eldest son of the Church, with all the thunders of the Vatican if he dared to advance upon Rome, Charles, in his low, sweet voice, addressed the bishop, saying:
"My Lord Bishop, I have but one answer to make to the prohibition of His Holiness, but I trust that answer will be deemed sufficient by all the members of my council, though all are devout men, and some of them peculiarly reverend by profession and by sanctity of life. I should wish an answer written to our Apostolic Father, assuring him of our deep respect and our willingness to obey his injunctions in all matters of religion, where superior duties from which he himself cannot set us free do not interpose; but informing him of a fact which he does not know, that we are bound by a sacred vow sworn upon the Holy Evangelists, and upon a crucifix which contains a portion of the true cross, to visit the shrine of St. Peter before we turn our steps homewards. Is that not sufficient cause, my Lord Cardinal," he continued, looking towards Julian de Rovers, "to pass by all impediments and prohibitions and go forward on our pilgrimage?"
"Sufficient cause," exclaimed the eager and impetuous prelate, "what need of any cause? what need of any vow?"
He paused, almost choked by the impetuosity of his feelings; and a smile which had passed round the council at hearing a vow just taken, alleged as an excuse for disregarding a prohibition issued long before, faded away in eagerness to hear the further reply of a man whose powerful mind and iron will were known to all.