allant about them
but their ribbons and furbelows.

That such are stouter than the men of my day, no one dare maintain. I
have seen Crillon, whom veterans called the brave; and I have talked
with La Noue of the Iron Arm; for the rest, I can tell you of one--he
was a boy fourteen years old--known to me in my youth, who had it not in
him to fear.

He was page, along with me, to the King of Navarre; a year my junior,
and my rival. At riding, shooting and fencing he was the better; at
paume and tennis he always won. But naturally, being the elder, I had
the greater strength, and when the sharp sting of his wit provoked me, I
could drub him, and did so more than once. No extremity of defeat,
however, no, nor any severity of punishment could wring from Antoine a
word of submission; prostrate, with bleeding face, he was as ready to
fly at my throat as before I laid hand on him. And more, though I was
the senior, he was the life and soul and joy of the ante-chamber; the
first in mischief, the last in retreat; the first to cry a nick-name
after a burly priest who chanced to pass us as we lounged at the
gates--and the first to be whipped when it turned out that the King had
a mind to please the clergy.

It followed that from the first I viewed him with a strange mixture of
rivalry and affection; ready at one moment to quarrel with him and beat
him for a misword, and the next to let him beat me if it pleased him. At
this time the King of Navarre had his court sometimes at Montauban,
sometimes at Nerac; and there were rumours of a war between him and the
King of France; to be clear, it was this year, that in the hope of
maintaining the peace, the latter's mother, the Queen Catherine, came
with a glittering train of ladies to Nerac, and paid her court to our
King, and there were ball and pageants and gay doings by day and night.
But the Huguenots were not lightly taken in, and under this fair mask
suspected treachery, and not without reason; for one night, during a
ball, Catherine's friends seized a strong town, and but for Henry's
readiness--who took horse that moment and before daylight had surprised
a town of France to set against it--they would have gained the
advantage. So in the event Catherine did little, no one trusting her,
and in the end she returned to Paris wiser than she came; but for the
time the visit lasted the court gaieties continued, and there were
masques and dances, and the thought of war was seemingly far fr