his hunters had passed through. Agrippa d'Aubigny was not among them.
His part had been to watch the happenings of the Court, and join Navarre
later in his own kingdom, but that hope was broken. Disguised as a
_mignon_ of Henri III, he slipped out of Paris on a fast horse, tore
after the Bearnais and his equerries, and caught the cavalcade in the
forest. "Thou art betrayed!" he cried.

"But not captured!" laughed Navarre.

In haste they substituted a new plot for the old. The young king was to
pretend ignorance of the betrayal. He installed himself accordingly in
the best lodgings of Senlis, talking loudly about hunting prospects,
arranged to see a performance by travelling actors, and sent such a
message back to Catherine and Henri that they believed Fervacques had
fooled them.

By the time they'd waked to the truth, Navarre had ridden safely out of
Senlis with his friends, bound for the kingdom on the Spanish border.
Even then he was a man of big ambitions; so maybe he said to himself,
looking back at Senlis: "I shall travel this road again, as king of
France, to enter Paris in triumph." Anyhow, he was grateful to Senlis
for saving him, and stayed there often, as Henri Quatre, flirting with
pretty ladies, and inviting them to become abbesses when he tired of
them.

Lots of things have happened in Senlis, because it's on the road to
Paris, and for centuries has been getting into someone's way. Why, if it
hadn't been for Senlis, William the Conqueror might never have
conquered! You see, before William's day, Count Bernard of Senlis (who
boasted himself a forty-second grandson or something of Charlemagne)
quarrelled with King Louis IV of France. To spite him, Bernard adopted
the baby son of William Longsword, Duke of Normandy, killed in battle;
for Normandy was a "thorn in the eye" of France. Thanks to Bernard's
help Normandy gained in riches and importance. By the time William, son
of Robert the Devil and Arlette of Falaise, appeared on the scene, the
dukedom was a power in the world, and William was able to dare his great
enterprise.

But that was only one incident. Senlis was already an old, old town, and
as much entitled to call itself a capital of France as was Paris. Not
for nothing had the Gallo-Romans given it walls twenty feet high and
thirteen feet thick! They could not have builded better had they meant
to attract posterity's attention, and win for their strong city the
admiration of kings. Clovis was