, agonies that might have atoned for some of those which had been
imposed by his command. He paced the room with short and unequal steps,
often stood still and clasped his hands together, and gave loose,
in short, to agitation, which in public he had found himself able to
suppress so successfully. At length, pausing and wringing his hands, he
planted himself opposite to the wicket door, which had been pointed
out by old Mornay as leading to the scene of the murder of one of his
predecessors, and gradually gave voice to his feelings in a broken
soliloquy.

"Charles the Simple--Charles the Simple!--what will posterity call the
Eleventh Louis, whose blood will probably soon refresh the stains of
thine! Louis the Fool--Louis the Driveller--Louis the Infatuated--are
all terms too slight to mark the extremity of my idiocy! To think these
hot headed Liegeois, to whom rebellion is as natural as their food,
would remain quiet--to dream that the Wild Beast of Ardennes would for
a moment be interrupted in his career of force and bloodthirsty
brutality--to suppose that I could use reason and arguments to any good
purpose with Charles of Burgundy, until I had tried the force of such
exhortations with success upon a wild bull. Fool, and double idiot that
I was! But the villain Martius shall not escape.--He has been at the
bottom of this, he and the vile priest, the detestable Balue. If I ever
get out of this danger, I will tear from his head the Cardinal's cap,
though I pull the scalp along with it! But the other traitor is in my
hands--I am yet King enough--have yet an empire roomy enough--for
the punishment of the quack salving, word mongering, star gazing, lie
coining impostor, who has at once made a prisoner and a dupe of me!--The
conjunction of the constellations--ay, the conjunction.--He must talk
nonsense which would scarce gull a thrice sodden sheep's head, and
I must be idiot enough to think I understand him! But we shall see
presently what the conjunction hath really boded. But first let me to my
devotions."

[Louis kept his promise of vengeance against Cardinal La Balue, whom he
always blamed as having betrayed him to Burgundy. After he had returned
to his own kingdom, he caused his late favourite to be immured in one
of the iron cages at Loches. These were constructed with horrible
ingenuity, so that a person of ordinary size could neither stand up at
his full height, nor lie lengthwise in them. Some ascribe this horrid