"Budelone! Dolt that you are, do not you see that this plot enables our Queen to learn what the Huguenots can do with the Duc d'Alençon, and what the King means to do with the Huguenots? For the King is temporizing with them. And Catherine, to set the King riding on a wooden horse, will betray the plot which must nullify his schemes."
"Ay!" said Charles de Gondi, "by dint of taking our advice she can beat us at our own game. That is very good."
"Good for the Duc d'Anjou, who would rather be King of France than King of Poland; I am going to explain matters to him."
"You are going, Albert?"
"To-morrow. Is it not my duty to attend the King of Poland? I shall join him at Venice, where the Signori have undertaken to amuse him."
"You are prudence itself."
"Che bestia! I assure you solemnly that there is not the slightest danger for either of us at Court. If there were, should I leave? I would stick to our kind mistress."
"Kind!" said the Grand Master. "She is the woman to drop her tools if she finds them too heavy."
"O coglione! You call yourself a soldier, and are afraid of death? Every trade has its duties, and our duty is to Fortune. When we attach ourselves to monarchs who are the fount of all temporal power, and who protect and ennoble and enrich our families, we have to give them such love as inflames the soul of the martyr for heaven; when they sacrifice us for the throne we may perish, for we die as much for ourselves as for them, but our family does not perish.—Ecco; I have said!"
"You are quite right, Albert; you have got the old duchy of Retz."