scrupulous in
chicanery, sleepless in his aggression, ruthless to the extremest verge
of cruelty; no treaty had been too solemn to tear up, no oath too
sacred for violation, no act of blood too pitiless.

With Louis the one sole question had ever been, Does it advantage
France? If it did, then his hand struck or his cunning filched,
careless of right or privileges. As he had said, and said truly,
France came first. It was his one justification for the unjustifiable.
No! Never such a nation-builder and never a man so feared and hated
for valid cause. He was the King of the greatest, the most powerful
France Europe had ever known, but it was a miserable France, a France
seething with wretchedness, with discontent, and each hour he went in
terror for his life. Only a few, such as Commines himself, could
foresee how great would one day be the power of these weak,
antagonistic states he had so ruthlessly welded into one. For the
rest, France was so full of unhappiness and dread that the Dauphin
might well be the centre of a plot, a plot to murder the father in the
son's name for the relief of the nation. But was the Dauphin himself
concerned in the plot, or had he that knowledge which, prince though he
was, laid him open to the penalty for blood-guiltiness? These were the
questions which troubled Commines.

Clearly--and as he followed his train of thought he turned aside, his
hands locked behind him, his head bowed, and walked up and down in the
shadow flung by the gloomy range of buildings which cut the courtyard
into two halves--clearly the King had no doubt: clearly the despatch
had left no room for doubt. Or else--the thought was contemptible, but
it refused to be thrust aside--the King wished to have no room for
doubt. The frown deepened on Commines' face as he remembered how often
the King's wishes had been master of the truth.

But could any father be cursed with such a terrible wish? Yes, when
the father was that complex, unhappy man, Louis of France. Commines
knew the King as no man else knew him, and in the gloomy depths of that
knowledge he found two reasons why the father would have no sorrow for
the death of the son. It was characteristic of Louis to hate and dread
his natural successor, nor did his distrustful fears pause to consider
that if the Dauphin was swept aside Charles of Orleans would stand in
his son's place. When that day came he would hate and dread Charles as
his suspicious soul n