“Pasques-Dieu!” he cried; “here’s an audacity that deserves the axe.”
“Sire,” replied Saint-Vallier, haughtily, “I would prefer an axe at my throat to the ornament of marriage on my head.”
“You may have both,” said Louis XI. “None of you are safe from such infirmities, messieurs. Go into the farther hall. Conyngham,” continued the king, addressing the captain of the guard, “you are asleep! Where is Monsieur de Bridore? Why do you let me be approached in this way? Pasques-Dieu! the lowest burgher in Tours is better served than I am.”
After scolding thus, Louis re-entered his room; but he took care to draw the tapestried curtain, which made a second door, intended more to stifle the words of the king than the whistling of the harsh north wind.
“So, my daughter,” he said, liking to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse, “Georges d’Estouteville was your lover last night?”
“Oh, no, sire!”
“No! Ah! by Saint-Carpion, he deserves to die. Did the scamp not think my daughter beautiful?”
“Oh! that is not it,” she said. “He kissed my feet and hands with an ardor that might have touched the most virtuous of women. He loves me truly in all honor.”
“Do you take me for Saint-Louis, and suppose I should believe such nonsense? A young fellow, made like him, to have risked his life just to kiss your little slippers or your sleeves! Tell that to others.”
“But, sire, it is true. And he came for another purpose.”