“Implore, then, but you will find me deaf.”
“For your own sake, Sire!”
“It is for my sake I go—mine honour as a king.”
“For the sake of your servants, then, who have risked so much!”
“I cannot! I will not,” he cried. “I will go.”
“For the sake of France, the country you so dearly love!”
“It is for the sake of France I go, to prove myself worthy the name of her King. You urge me to perform a dastardly act in fleeing at a time like this.”
“Remember, Sire, the reason why you came.”
“I do,” said the King, standing up proudly in the boat, as the edge of the moon began to lift above the low mist that lay upon the river and adjacent meads, lighting up the King’s face, animated now into stern beauty by the spirit within which spoke, “and think of it with shame. Listening to your words, I blinded myself into the belief that it was right, that it was a brave and a gallant act to wrest that Crown jewel from King Henry’s hand; but I see more clearly now that my mad enterprise has met with its merited fate, and go back I will as a chivalrous knight, ask my brother King’s forgiveness, and save that brave boy from his cruel fate.”
“But, Sire, remember! Remember Fontainebleau and France.”