"Well, my young hot-blood," replied Maitre Pierre, "if you hold the Sanglier too unscrupulous, wherefore not follow the young Duke of Gueldres?"[4]
"Follow the foul fiend as soon," said Quentin. "Hark in your ear – he is a burden too heavy for earth to carry – hell gapes for him! Men say that he keeps his own father imprisoned, and that he has even struck him – Can you believe it?"
Maitre Pierre seemed somewhat disconcerted with the naïve horror with which the young Scotsman spoke of filial ingratitude, and he answered, "You know not, young man, how short a while the relations of blood subsist amongst those of elevated rank;" then changed the tone of feeling in which he had begun to speak, and added, gaily, "besides, if the Duke has beaten his father, I warrant you his father hath beaten him of old, so it is but a clearing of scores."
"I marvel to hear you speak thus," said the Scot, colouring with indignation; "grey hairs such as yours ought to have fitter subjects for jesting. If the old Duke did beat his son in childhood, he beat him not enough; for better he had died under the rod, than have lived to make the Christian world ashamed that such a monster had ever been baptized."
"At this rate," said Maitre Pierre, "as you weigh the characters of each prince and leader, I think you had better become a captain yourself; for where will one so wise find a chieftain fit to command him?"
"You laugh at me, Maitre Pierre," said the youth, good-humouredly, "and perhaps you are right; but you have not named a man who is a gallant leader, and keeps a brave party up here, under whom a man might seek service well enough."
"I cannot guess whom you mean."
"Why, he that hangs like Mahomet's coffin (a curse be upon Mahomet!) between the two loadstones – he that no man can call either French or Burgundian, but who knows to hold the balance between them both, and makes both of them fear and serve him, for as great princes as they be."
"I cannot guess whom you mean," said Maitre Pierre, thoughtfully.
"Why, whom should I mean but the noble Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint Paul, the High Constable of France? Yonder he makes his place good, with his gallant little army, holding his head as high as either King Louis or Duke Charles, and balancing between them, like the boy who stands on the midst of a plank, while two others are swinging on the opposite ends."[5]