e I have
ascertained that it is as sharp as that rascal's larding-needle."

"Patience, my dear friend, patience," said La Mole. "All the inns in
Paris are full of gentlemen come to attend the King of Navarre's
marriage or attracted by the approaching war with Flanders; we should
not find another lodging; besides, perhaps it is the custom at Paris to
receive strangers in this manner."

"By Heaven! how patient you are, Monsieur de la Mole!" muttered
Coconnas, curling his red mustache with rage and hurling the lightning
of his eyes on the landlord. "But let the scoundrel take care; for if
his cooking be bad, if his bed be hard, his wine less than three years
in bottle, and his waiter be not as pliant as a reed"--

"There! there! my dear gentleman!" said the landlord, whetting his knife
on a strap, "you may make yourself easy; you are in the land of
Cocagne."

Then in a low tone he added:

"These are some Huguenots; traitors have grown so insolent since the
marriage of their Bearnais with Mademoiselle Margot!"

Then, with a smile that would have made his guests shudder had they seen
it:

"How strange it would be if I were just to have two Huguenots come to my
house, when"--

"Now, then," interrupted Coconnas, pointedly, "are we going to have any
supper?"

"Yes, as soon as you please, monsieur," returned the landlord, softened,
no doubt, by the last reflection.

"Well, then, the sooner the better," said Coconnas; and turning to La
Mole:

"Pray, Monsieur le Comte, while they are putting our room in order, tell
me, do you think Paris seems a gay city?"

"Faith! no," said La Mole. "All the faces I have seen looked scared or
forbidding; perhaps the Parisians also are afraid of the storm; see how
very black the sky is, and the air feels heavy."

"Tell me, count, are you not bound for the Louvre?"

"Yes! and you also, Monsieur de Coconnas."

"Well, let us go together."

"It is rather late to go out, is it not?" said La Mole.

"Early or late, I must go; my orders are peremptory--'Come instantly to
Paris, and report to the Duc de Guise without delay.'"

At the Duc de Guise's name the landlord drew nearer.

"I think the rascal is listening to us," said Coconnas, who, as a true
son of Piedmont, was very truculent, and could not forgive the
proprietor of _La Belle Etoile_ his rude reception of them.

"I am listening, gentlemen," replied he, taking off his cap; "but it is
to serve you. I heard the great duke's