greater than
perhaps his sad life had ever known.

He rode among his gentlemen, and the brilliant cavalcade passed through
poplar-shaded roads, clattered through villages, and threaded their
way through bits of forest still left for the royal chase. The people
thronged out of their houses, and shouted not only 'Vive le Roy,' but
'Vive l'Amiral,' and more than once the cry was added, 'Spanish war, or
civil war!' The heart of France was, if not with the Reformed, at
least against Spain and the Lorrainers, and Sidney perceived, from the
conversation of the gentlemen round him, that the present expedition had
been devised less for the sake of the sport, than to enable the King to
take measures for emancipating himself from the thraldom of his mother,
and engaging the country in a war against Philip II. Sidney listened,
but Berenger chafed, feeling only that he was being further carried out
of reach of his explanation with his kindred. And thus they arrived
at Montpipeau, a tower, tall and narrow, like all French designs, but
expanded on the ground floor by wooden buildings capable of containing
the numerous train of a royal hunter, and surrounded by an extent of
waste land, without fine trees, though with covert for deer, boars, and
wolves sufficient for sport to royalty and death to peasantry. Charles
seemed to sit more erect in his saddle, and to drink in joy with every
breath of the thyme-scented breeze, from the moment his horse bounded
on the hollow-sounding turf; and when he leapt to the ground, with the
elastic spring of youth, he held out his hands to Sidney and to Teligny,
crying 'Welcome, my friends. Here I am indeed a king!'

It was a lovely summer evening, early in August, and Charles bade the
supper to be spread under the elms that shaded a green lawn in front
of the chateau. Etiquette was here so far relaxed as to permit the
sovereign to dine with his suite, and tables, chairs, and benches were
brought out, drapery festooned in the trees to keep off sun and wind,
the King lay down in the fern and let his happy dogs fondle him, and
as a hers-girl passed along a vista in the distance, driving her goats
before her, Philip Sidney marvelled whether it was not even thus in
Arcadia.

Presently there was a sound of horses trampling, wheels moving, a party
of gaily gilded archers of the guard jingled up, and in their midst
was a coach. Berenger's heart seemed to leap at once to his lips, as a
glimpse of ruffs, hats,