ssion on his brother-in-law; "for a new-married man,
Harry, you are very early."

"Yes, sire," answered the King of Navarre, "I wished to inquire of the
admiral, who knows everything, whether some gentlemen I am expecting are
on their way hither."

"More gentlemen! why, you had eight hundred on the day of your wedding,
and fresh ones join you every day. You are surely not going to invade
us?" said Charles IX., smiling.

The Duc de Guise frowned.

"Sire," returned the Bearnais, "a war with Flanders is spoken of, and I
am collecting round me all those gentlemen of my country and its
neighborhood whom I think can be useful to your Majesty."

The duke, calling to mind the pretended project Henry had mentioned to
Marguerite the day of their marriage, listened still more attentively.

"Well, well," replied the King, with his sinister smile, "the more the
better; let them all come, Henry. But who are these gentlemen?--brave
ones, I trust."

"I know not, sire, if my gentlemen will ever equal those of your
Majesty, or the Duc d'Anjou's, or the Duc de Guise's, but I know that
they will do their best."

"Do you expect many?"

"Ten or a dozen more."

"What are their names?"

"Sire, their names escape me, and with the exception of one, whom
Teligny recommended to me as a most accomplished gentleman, and whose
name is De la Mole, I cannot tell."

"De la Mole!" exclaimed the King, who was deeply skilled in the science
of genealogy; "is he not a Lerac de la Mole, a Provencal?"

"Exactly so, sire; you see I recruit even in Provence."

"And I," added the Duc de Guise, with a sarcastic smile, "go even
further than his majesty the King of Navarre, for I seek even in
Piedmont all the trusty Catholics I can find."

"Catholic or Huguenot," interrupted the King, "it little matters to me,
so they are brave."

The King's face while he uttered these words, which thus united
Catholics and Huguenots in his thoughts, bore such an expression of
indifference that the duke himself was surprised.

"Your Majesty is occupied with the Flemings," said the admiral, to whom
Charles had some days previously accorded the favor of entering without
being announced, and who had overheard the King's last words.

"Ah! here is my father the admiral!" cried Charles, opening his arms.
"We were speaking of war, of gentlemen, of brave men--and _he_ comes. It
is like the lodestone which attracts the iron. My brother-in-law of
Navarre and my cousin