These, and other discourses, by which the King mixed hints at serious
affairs amid matters of mirth and amusement, did not follow each other
consecutively; but were adroitly introduced during the time of the
banquet at the Hotel de Ville, during a subsequent interview in the
Duke's own apartments, and, in short, as occasion seemed to render the
introduction of such delicate subjects easy and natural.

Indeed, however rashly Louis had placed himself in a risk which the
Duke's fiery temper and the mutual subjects of exasperated enmity which
subsisted betwixt them rendered of doubtful and perilous issue, never
pilot on an unknown coast conducted himself with more firmness and
prudence. He seemed to sound with the utmost address and precision
the depths and shallows of his rival's mind and temper, and manifested
neither doubt nor fear when the result of his experiments discovered
much more of sunken rocks and of dangerous shoals than of safe
anchorage.

At length a day closed which must have been a wearisome one to Louis,
from the constant exertion, vigilance, precaution, and attention which
his situation required, as it was a day of constraint to the Duke, from
the necessity of suppressing the violent feelings to which he was in the
general habit of giving uncontrolled vent.

No sooner had the latter retired into his own apartment, after he had
taken a formal leave of the King for the night, than he gave way to the
explosion of passion which he had so long suppressed; and many an oath
and abusive epithet, as his jester, Le Glorieux said, "fell that night
upon heads which they were never coined for," his domestics reaping
the benefit of that hoard of injurious language which he could not in
decency bestow on his royal guest, even in his absence, and which was
yet become too great to be altogether suppressed. The jests of the clown
had some effect in tranquillizing the Duke's angry mood--he laughed
loudly, threw the jester a piece of gold, caused himself to be disrobed
in tranquillity, swallowed a deep cup of wine and spices, went to bed,
and slept soundly.

The couchee of King Louis is more worthy of notice than that of Charles;
for the violent expression of exasperated and headlong passion, as
indeed it belongs more to the brutal than the intelligent part of our
nature, has little to interest us, in comparison to the deep workings of
a vigorous and powerful mind.

Louis was escorted to the lodgings he had chosen in th