so that the lances of Hainault, Brabant, and
Burgundy may advance to the attack twenty men in front?"

"The improvident idiots!" said the King. "If they have thus neglected
their own safety, they deserve not my protection. Pass on--I will make
no quarrel for their sake."

"The next point, I fear, will sit closer to your Majesty's heart," said
De Comines.

"Ah!" replied the King, "you mean that infernal marriage! I will not
consent to the breach of the contract betwixt my daughter Joan and my
cousin of Orleans--it would be wresting the sceptre of France from
me and my posterity; for that feeble boy, the Dauphin, is a blighted
blossom, which will wither without fruit. This match between Joan and
Orleans has been my thought by day, my dream by night.--I tell thee, Sir
Philip, I cannot give it up!--Besides, it is inhuman to require me,
with my own hand, to destroy at once my own scheme of policy, and the
happiness of a pair brought up for each other."

"Are they, then, so much attached?" said De Comines.

"One of them at least," said the King, "and the one for whom I am bound
to be most anxious. But you smile, Sir Philip--you are no believer in
the force of love."

"Nay," said De Comines, "if it please you, Sire, I am so little an
infidel in that particular that I was about to ask whether it would
reconcile you in any degree to your acquiescing in the proposed marriage
betwixt the Duke of Orleans and Isabelle de Croye, were I to satisfy you
that the Countess's inclinations are so much fixed on another, that it
is likely it will never be a match?"

King Louis sighed. "Alas," he said, "my good and dear friend, from
what sepulchre have you drawn such dead comfort? Her inclinations,
indeed!--Why, to speak truth, supposing that Orleans detested my
daughter Joan, yet, but for this ill ravelled web of mischance, he must
needs have married her; so you may conjecture how little chance there
is of this damsel's being able to refuse him under a similar compulsion,
and he a Child of France besides.--Ah, no, Philip! little fear of her
standing obstinate against the suit of such a lover.--Varium et mutabile
[(semper femina): woman is always inconstant and capricious], Philip."

"Your Majesty may, in the present instance, undervalue the obstinate
courage of this young lady. She comes of a race determinately wilful;
and I have picked out of Crevecoeur that she has formed a romantic
attachment to a young squire, who, to say truth,