“We have made a blunder,” remarked the duke, who was playing with his dagger, tossing it into the air and catching it by the hilt. “We ought to have treated her as we did the Reformers,—given her complete freedom of action and caught her in the act.”
The cardinal looked at his brother for an instant and shook his head.
“What does Pardaillan want?” said the duke, observing the approach of the young nobleman who was later to become celebrated by his encounter with La Renaudie, in which they both lost their lives.
“Monseigneur, a man sent by the queen’s furrier is at the gate, and says he has an ermine suit to convey to her. Am I to let him enter?”
“Ah! yes,—the ermine coat she spoke of yesterday,” returned the cardinal; “let the shop-fellow pass; she will want the garment for the voyage down the Loire.”
“How did he get here without being stopped until he reached the gate?” asked the duke.
“I do not know,” replied Pardaillan.
“I’ll ask to see him when he is with the queen,” thought the Balafre. “Let him wait in the salle des gardes,” he said aloud. “Is he young, Pardaillan?”
“Yes, monseigneur; he says he is a son of Lecamus the furrier.”
“Lecamus is a good Catholic,” remarked the cardinal, who, like his brother the duke, was endowed with Caesar’s memory. “The rector of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs relies upon him; he is the provost of that quarter.”