tes, until it was time to retire; Rosny and Biron, and
the great men of the day, standing, or sitting on chests round the
chamber. If he would be more private he had his cabinet; or, if the
matter were of prime importance, he would take his confidants to an open
space in the garden--such as the white-mulberry grove, encircled by the
canal at Fontainebleau; where, posting a Swiss guard who did not
understand French, at the only bridge that gave access to the place, he
could talk without reserve.

In those days the court rode, or if sick, went in litters. Coaches were
only coming into fashion, Henry, who feared nothing else, having so
invincible a distaste for them that he was wont to turn pale if the
coach in which he travelled swayed more than usual. Ladies, the Queen's
mother and her suite excepted, rode sideways on pads, their feet
supported by a little board; and side-saddles were rare. At great
banquets the fairest and noblest served the tables. We dined at ten in
the country and eleven in Paris; instead of at noon, as is the custom
now.

When the King lay alone, his favourite pages took it by turns to sleep
at his feet; the page on duty using a low truckle bed that in the
daytime fitted under the King's bed, and at night was drawn out. Not
seldom, however, and more often if the times were troublous, he would
invite one of his councillors to share his couch, and talk the night
through with him; a course which in these days might seem undignified.
Frequently he and the Queen received favourite courtiers before they
left their beds; particularly on New Year's morning it was the duty of
the Finance Minister to wait on them, and awaken them with a present of
medals struck for the purpose.

And I recall many other changes. But one thing, which some young sparks,
with a forwardness neither becoming in them nor respectful to me, have
ventured to suggest, even in my presence--that we who lived in the old
war time were a rougher breed and less dainty and chivalrous than the
Buckinghams and Bassompierres of to-day--I roundly deny. On the
contrary, I would have these to know that he who rode in the wars with
Henry of Guise--or against him--had for his example not only the
handsomest but the most courtly man of all times; and has nothing to
learn from a set of pert fellows who, unable to acquire the stately
courtesy that becomes a gentleman, are fain to air themselves in a
dandified-simpering trim of their own, with nought g