ome by accident. But Tristan? Tristan botches no jobs.
But to come back to our epic. Book the Third: Blaise! How many dead
were there?"

"Four."

"And Blaise, the stableman, has two at the least, if not three, to his
credit. When Charles is king--pray heaven Louis does not hear me at
Valmy--he should make Blaise, the stableman, a Marshal of France, or
perhaps Master of the Horse would suit him better," and Villon chuckled
gleefully. He had always a huge appreciation of his own wit, however
slender. "There's a lucky dog for you, to grip death round the neck,
hugging him to the breast with both arms, and yet get nothing worse
than a scratched wrist, a slashed palm, and a dent in a thick skull.
Book the Fourth: but here is Monsieur d'Argenton and I had better----
No! I'll stand my ground. The rose garden of Amboise is free to all
king's jackals."

"Villon, Villon, why are you so bitter-tongued?"

"Listen to Monsieur de Commines for five minutes and you will know why.
And it is not I who am bitter, but the truth. Jackals both, I say."

They were, as Villon had said, in the rose garden. Dusk, the dusk of
the day on which Hugues had made history to be forgotten, was
thickening fast, but the air was still warm with all the sultriness of
noon. To that confined space, with the grey walls towering on three
sides, coolness came slowly. The solid masonry held the heat like the
living rock itself, and no current of the night wind blowing overhead
eddied downward in refreshment.

But solid as was the masonry, and mighty the walls in their frowning
strength, there is but little of them left, and of the rose garden not
a trace. Time, the great iconoclast, has touched them with his finger
and they have passed away like the humble maker of history, while
Francois Villon's tinkle of rhyme, leavened with human nature, still
leaves its imprint on a whole nation. Perhaps the reason is that the
makers of history could have been done without. In these generations
the world would be little the worse, little changed had they never been
born, and have lost nothing of the joy or brightness of life. In his
own generation the patriot is more necessary than the poet, but let
four centuries pass and the poet will wield a larger influence than the
patriot.

But thick as was the dusk, a dusk thicker than the actual degree of
night because of the prevailing shadow, La Mothe saw that Commines was
disturbed by an unwonted exciteme