"Well, I will hold my peace; but just one word,—one question."
"What may it be, Monseigneur?"
"Do you think, Master Paré," asked the duke, "that the results of this horrible wound will be to affect my health or my reason?"
"I am sure not, Monseigneur," said Ambroise; "but I fear that a cicatrix will remain,—a scar (balafré)—"
"A scar!" cried the duke; "oh, that is nothing! It is an adornment to a warrior's features; and the sobriquet of Balafré is one that I should not object to in the least."
It is well known that his contemporaries and posterity were of the Duc de Guise's opinion, who from that time (as well as his son after him) was surnamed Le Balafré by his generation and by history.
CHAPTER XXIV
PARTIAL DÉNOUEMENT
We go forward to the 8th of January,—the day succeeding that on which Gabriel d'Exmès had finally restored to the King of France Calais, his fairest city, which had been lost to him for so many years, and the Duc de Guise, his greatest captain, who had been in imminent danger of death.
But we have no longer to deal with questions involving the future fate of nations; we are at present to occupy ourselves with matters of private and domestic import. From the breach in the walls of Calais and the sick bed of François de Lorraine we pass to the living-room in the dwelling of the Peuquoys.