kind and so confiding, and therefore the animal endures
advances which are far from pacifying him, watching at the same time the
slightest opportunity which may justify him in his own eyes for seizing
his friend by the throat.

The King was no doubt sensible, from the altered voice, constrained
manner, and abrupt gestures of the Duke, that the game he had to play
was delicate, and perhaps he more than once repented having ever taken
it in hand. But repentance was too late, and all that remained for him
was that inimitable dexterity of management, which the King understood
equally at least with any man that ever lived.

The demeanour which Louis used towards the Duke was such as to resemble
the kind overflowing of the heart in a moment of sincere reconciliation
with an honoured and tried friend, from whom he had been estranged
by temporary circumstances now passed away, and forgotten as soon
as removed. The King blamed himself for not having sooner taken the
decisive step, of convincing his kind and good kinsman by such a mark
of confidence as he was now bestowing, that the angry passages which
had occurred betwixt them were nothing in his remembrance, when weighed
against the kindness which received him when an exile from France, and
under the displeasure of the King his father. He spoke of the good Duke
of Burgundy, as Philip the father of Duke Charles was currently called,
and remembered a thousand instances of his paternal kindness.

"I think, cousin," he said, "your father made little difference in his
affection betwixt you and me; for I remember when by an accident I had
bewildered myself in a hunting party, I found the good Duke upbraiding
you with leaving me in the forest, as if you had been careless of the
safety of an elder brother."

The Duke of Burgundy's features were naturally harsh and severe; and
when he attempted to smile, in polite acquiescence to the truth of what
the King told him, the grimace which he made was truly diabolical.

"Prince of dissemblers," he said, in his secret soul, "would that
it stood with my honour to remind you how you have requited all the
benefits of our House!"

"And then," continued the King, "if the ties of consanguinity and
gratitude are not sufficient to bind us together, my fair cousin, we
have those of spiritual relationship; for I am godfather to your fair
daughter Mary, who is as dear to me as one of my own maidens; and when
the Saints (their holy name be blessed!