"But I am already dead and buried," said the constable, with a bitter laugh.
"Why do you say that, my friend?" replied Madame de Poitiers. "You have not ceased to be as powerful and as formidable to the nation's enemies without as to your personal enemies within."
"Let us talk seriously, Diane, and not try to flatter or deceive each other with empty words."
"If I deceive you, it is only because I myself am deceived," Diane rejoined. "Give me proofs that I am wrong, and I will not only acknowledge my error on the spot, but I will do all I can to rectify it."
"Very well," said the constable; "in the first place, you speak of the enemies without trembling before me. Those are very comforting words; but, in reality, who is sent against these enemies?—a general who is younger and doubtless more fortunate than myself, but who may some day turn this good fortune of his to his own private advantage."
"What makes you think that the Duc de Guise will succeed?" asked Diane, with most subtle flattery.
"His failure," replied the constable, hypocritically, "would be a terrible misfortune for France, which I should bitterly deplore for my country's sake; but his success would perhaps be an even more terrible misfortune, which I should dread for the sake of my sovereign."
"Do you believe then," said Diane, "that the ambition of Monsieur de Guise—"
"I have probed it, and it is very deep," replied the jealous courtier. "If by any chance there should be a change of reign, have you considered what that ambition, assisted by the influence of Mary Stuart, might be able to effect upon the mind of a young and inexperienced king! My devotion to your interests has completely alienated Queen Catherine from me. The Guises will be more sovereign than the sovereign himself."
"Such a catastrophe is, thank God, very improbable and very far distant," returned Diane, who could not avoid the reflection that her friend of sixty years was rather free with his conjectures as to the prospects of the early demise of a king who was but forty.