“And I will pay it, Count. Pasques dieu, I will pay it!—See you not yonder fair couple?”
The King pointed to the unhappy Duke of Orleans and the Princess, who, neither daring to remain at a greater distance from the King, nor in his sight appear separate from each other, were riding side by side, yet with an interval of two or three yards betwixt them, a space which timidity on the one side, and aversion on the other, prevented them from diminishing, while neither dared to increase it.
Dunois looked in the direction of the King's signal, and as the situation of his unfortunate relative and the destined bride reminded him of nothing so much as of two dogs, which, forcibly linked together, remain nevertheless as widely separated as the length of their collars will permit, he could not help shaking his head, though he ventured not on any other reply to the hypocritical tyrant. Louis seemed to guess his thoughts.
“It will be a peaceful and quiet household they will keep—not much disturbed with children, I should augur. But these are not always a blessing.”
[Here the King touches on the very purpose for which he pressed on the match with such tyrannic severity, which was that as the Princess's personal deformity admitted little chance of its being fruitful, the branch of Orleans, which was next in succession to the crown, might be, by the want of heirs, weakened or extinguished]
It was, perhaps, the recollection of his own filial ingratitude that made the King pause as he uttered the last reflection, and which converted the sneer that trembled on his lip into something resembling an expression of contrition. But he instantly proceeded in another tone.
“Frankly, my Dunois, much as I revere the holy sacrament of matrimony” (here he crossed himself), “I would rather the house of Orleans raised for me such gallant soldiers as thy father and thyself, who share the blood royal of France without claiming its rights, than that the country should be torn to pieces, like to England, by wars arising from the rivalry of legitimate candidates for the crown. The lion should never have more than one cub.”
Dunois sighed and was silent, conscious that contradicting his arbitrary Sovereign might well hurt his kinsman's interests but could do him no service; yet he could not forbear adding, in the next moment,
“Since your Majesty has alluded to the birth of my father, I must needs own that, setting the frailty of his parents on one side, he might be termed happier, and more fortunate, as the son of lawless love than of conjugal hatred.”
“Thou art a scandalous fellow, Dunois, to speak thus of holy wedlock,” answered Louis jestingly. “But to the devil with the discourse, for the boar is unharboured.—Lay on the dogs, in the name of the holy Saint Hubert!—Ha! ha! tra-la-la-lira-la”—And the King's horn rang merrily through the woods as he pushed forward on the chase, followed by two or three of his guards, amongst whom was our friend Quentin Durward. And here it was remarkable that, even in the keen prosecution of his favourite sport, the King in indulgence of his caustic disposition, found leisure to amuse himself by tormenting Cardinal Balue.