"Only that Monsieur de Helville is a man of contradictory tastes, Sire; but, for my part, I prefer second thoughts."
"Pish! you talk riddles, and I do not like what I do not understand," said Louis. Though he spoke to Commines, his gaze never left my face, and I was conscious that he played with me as a tolerant cat plays with a mouse. "So you would marry her, though she is only a peasant? Some would say, have you no droits de Seigneur in your parts! and cry Fie! on you for your honesty. But not I. Her limbs may be as white as any satin lady's, her cheeks as pink, her lips as red to kiss, her breath as sweet, and what more can five and twenty ask! eh?"
He paused, as if for an answer, but I, conscious of Monseigneur's veiled reference to Mademoiselle, and that I was practising at least half a lie, could do no more than stammer an inane something to the effect that he was very good, which was in itself a lie, and at which banality the grin broke out afresh.
"For my part," he went on, "I am well enough pleased. After all, you are a gentleman; the breed will be one degree nearer to the sod and all the better for the mixture. It is from the people that salvation must come to the nation, not from the nobles. Besides she is a hostage, and being a peasant, will be the easier handled. For her sake, be faithful, Monsieur, or by God!" and leaning aside, he shook his finger backwards and forwards at the dim shrine behind him, "by God! I say, those white limbs shall suffer, and those red lips scream, nor will all the love in the world keep a curse of Gaspard de Helville off them. The marriage bed with Solignac as your roof-tree, or the naked rack, Monsieur, and at your own choice."
"I have already promised, Sire——"
"No, Monsieur, no," he interrupted, "you have promised nothing. D'Argenton has promised for you, which is quite another thing. Promises? Bah! what are promises? I have known even kings break them! Give me an oath." Fumbling at his throat he loosed a collar of reliquaries which hung round his neck and spread it on the table before him with more real reverence than I had ever yet seen him display, even when taking the name of Christ in his mouth. "Now, Monsieur, lay your hand there. No, no, down on your knees, on your knees. What! you kneel to me, and yet dare stand upright in the presence of God Almighty, before Whom you swear? Down on your knees, I say! when you call Christ and His saints to witness. Now, repeat: I Gaspard de Helville, otherwise, Hellewyl, swear by my honour in this life, and by my salvation in that to come, that I shall perform the King's service faithfully to the end, or, failing such performance, will return forthwith to Plessis to confess the failure and its cause, so help me God and His Saints."
Speaking from my knees, and with both hands spread over the little heap of holy things, I repeated the oath clause by clause. As I ended, and while still kneeling, Louis snatched the necklet from under my palms, and touching a spring in one of the reliquaries, pressed the little grey morsel it contained to my lips.
"Consummatum est!" he cried triumphantly, "Now indeed we have you, have you body and soul, bound fast for this world and that which is to come. 'Tis the Cross of Saint Lo, Monsieur de Helville, whereon who forswears himself dies within the year and perishes eternally. The guarantees are complete. What a man will not do for a woman's sake he will for his life—if not for his soul. His soul!" he groaned complainingly, the unctuousness slipping out from his voice as suddenly as it had slipped in. "We spend so much time saving our souls that France suffers. Cannot the Saints save us and have done with it! But there's a thought there; d'Argenton, your arm."
Pushing back his chair, the King rose painfully to his feet, a meagre skeleton of a man, bent by more than the weight of years.
"On this occasion when we seek the peace of the world it would be a Christian duty to ask the blessing of Saint Eutropius."