This phrase so pleased me, that I repeated it to the king. It tickled his fancy also, and for many years it was a common remark of that good and great ruler, that he would fain live to see every peasant with a fowl in his pot.
"But why," I remember, I once asked this honest fellow—it was on the last occasion of the sorrel falling lame there—"do you thank St. Geneviéve?"
"She is my patron saint," he answered.
"Then you are a Parisian?"
"Your lordship is always right."
"But does her saintship do you any good?" I asked curiously.
"By your lordship's leave. My wife prays to her, and she loosens the nails in the sorrel's shoes."
"Then she pays off an old grudge," I answered. "There was a time when Paris liked me little. But hark you, Master Smith! I am not sure 'tis not an act of treason to conspire with Madame Geneviéve against the comfort of the King's minister. What think you, you rascal? Can you pass the justice-elm without a shiver?"
This threw the simple fellow into great fear, which the sight of the livre of gold converted into joy. Leaving him still staring at his fortune, I rode away. But when we had gone some little distance, the aspect of his face, when I charged him with treason, or my own unassisted discrimination, suggested a clue to the phenomenon.
"La Trape," I said to my valet—the same who was with me at Cahors—"what is the name of the innkeeper at Poissy, at whose house we are accustomed to dine?"