" – But without whom," continued Des Comines, not heeding the interruption, – "as your Majesty will not now likely find it convenient to supply them, – what chance will the burghers have of making good their town, in whose walls the large breaches made by Charles after the battle of St Tron are still unrepaired; so that the lances of Hainault, Brabant, and Burgundy, may advance to the attack twenty men in front?"
"The improvident idiots!" said the King – "If they have thus neglected their own safety, they deserve not my protection. – Pass on – I will make no quarrel for their sake."
"The next point, I fear, will sit closer to your Majesty's heart," said Des Comines.
"Ah!" replied the King, "you mean that infernal marriage! I will not consent to the breach of the contract betwixt my daughter Joan and my cousin of Orleans – it would be wresting the sceptre of France from me and my posterity; for that feeble boy the Dauphin is a blighted blossom, which will wither without fruit. This match between Joan and Orleans has been my thought by day, my dream by night – I tell thee, Sir Philip, I cannot give it up! – Besides, it is inhuman to require me, with my own hand, to destroy at once my own scheme of policy, and the happiness of a pair brought up for each other."
"Are they then so much attached?" said Des Comines.
"One of them at least is," said the King, "and the one for whom I am bound to be most anxious. But you smile, Sir Philip, – you are no believer in the force of love."
"Nay," said Des Comines, "if it please you, Sire, I am so little an infidel in that particular, that I was about to ask whether it would reconcile you in any degree to your acquiescing in the proposed marriage betwixt the Duke of Orleans and Isabelle de Croye, were I to satisfy you that the Countess's inclinations are so much fixed on another, that it is likely it will never be a match?"
King Louis sighed. – "Alas!" he said, "my good and dear friend, from what sepulchre have you drawn such dead man's comfort? Her inclination, indeed! – Why, to speak truth, supposing that Orleans detested my daughter Joan, yet, but for this ill-ravelled web of mischance, he must needs have married her; so you may conjecture how little chance there is of this damsel being able to refuse him under a similar compulsion, and he a Child of France besides. – Ah, no, Philip! – little fear of her standing obstinate against the suit of such a lover. – Varium et mutabile, Philip."
"Your Majesty may, in the present instance, undervalue the obstinate courage of this young lady. She comes of a race determinately wilful; and I have picked out of Crèvecoeur that she has formed a romantic attachment to a young squire, who, to say truth, rendered her many services on the road."
"Ha!" said the King, – "an archer of my Guards, by name Quentin Durward?"