d in the
excitement of his rustic loyalty. Raising his bonnet, he cried loudly
_Vive le Roi!_--cried it more than once. There were six in the coach,
but Henry, whose pale meagre face with its almond eyes and scanty beard
permitted no mistake, remarked the salutation and the giver, and his
look cast the young man into a confusion which nearly cost him dearly;
for it was only as the guards closed round the coach that he perceived
Crillon sitting in the nearer boot. The moment he did see him he pushed
forward among the running footmen who followed the coach, and succeeded
in entering with it.

The courtyard, crowded with gentlemen, lackeys and torch-bearers, was a
scene of great confusion, and Bazan had no difficulty in approaching
Crillon and exchanging a sentence with him. That effected, so completely
was he confounded by the order whispered in his ear, that he observed
nothing more until he found himself in a long gallery, waiting with many
others attached to the great men's suites, while the magnificoes
themselves talked together at the upper end. By listening to the gossip
round him, he learned that one dark handsome man among the latter was
Alphonso d'Ornano, often called the Corsican Captain. A second was M.
d'O, the Governor of Paris; a third, the Count of Soissons. But he had
scarcely time to note these, or the novel and splendid scene in which he
stood, before the double doors at the end of the gallery were thrown
widely open, and amid a sudden hush the great courtiers passed into the
supper room in which the king, the Duke of Guise, and several ladies,
already stood or sat in their places, having entered by another door.
Bazan pressed in with the flock of attendant gentlemen, and seeing
Crillon preparing to sit down not far from the dais and canopy which
marked the king's chair, he took his stand against the wall behind him.

If the words which Crillon had dropped into his ear had not occupied
three-fourths of his thoughts, Bazan would have felt a keener admiration
of the scene before him; which, as was natural, surpassed in luxury
anything the country lad had ever imagined. The room, panelled and
ceiled with cedar, was hung with blue velvet and lighted by a hundred
tapers. The table gleamed with fine napery and gold plate, with Palissy
ware and Cellini vases; and these, with the rich dresses and jewels and
fair shoulders of the ladies, combined to form a beautiful interior
which resounded with the babble of ta