"you would not, reverend Father, have us resist his Majesty's will?"

"God forbid, my friend!" Father Pezelay answered with unction. "But his
Majesty's will is to do--to do for the glory of God and the saints and
His Holy Church! How? Is that which was lawful at Saumur unlawful here?
Is that which was lawful at Tours unlawful here? Is that which the King
did in Paris--to the utter extermination of the unbelieving and the
purging of that Sacred City--against his will here? Nay, his will is to
do--to do as they have done in Paris and in Tours and in Saumur! But his
Minister is unfaithful! The woman whom he has taken to his bosom has
bewildered him with her charms and her sorceries, and put it in his mind
to deny the mission he bears."

"You are sure, beyond chance of error, that he bears letters to that
effect, good Father?" the printer ventured.

"Ask my lord's Vicar! He knows the letters and the import of them!"

"They are to that effect," the Archdeacon answered, drumming on the table
with his fingers and speaking somewhat sullenly. "I was in the
Chancellery, and I saw them. They are duplicates of those sent to
Bordeaux."

"Then the preparations he has made must be against the Huguenots,"
Lescot, the ex-Provost, said with a sigh of relief. And Thuriot's face
lightened also. "He must intend to hang one or two of the ringleaders,
before he deals with the herd."

"Think it not!" Father Pezelay cried in his high shrill voice. "I tell
you the woman has bewitched him, and he will deny his letters!"

For a moment there was silence. Then, "But dare he do that, reverend
Father?" Lescot asked slowly and incredulously. "What? Suppress the
King's letters?"

"There is nothing he will not dare! There is nothing he has not dared!"
the priest answered vehemently, the recollection of the scene in the
great guard-room of the Louvre, when Tavannes had so skilfully turned the
tables on him, instilling venom into his tone. "She who lives with him
is the devil's. She has bewitched him with her spells and her Sabbaths!
She bears the mark of the Beast on her bosom, and for her the fire is
even now kindling!"

The laymen who were present shuddered. The two canons who faced them
crossed themselves, muttering, "Avaunt, Satan!"

"It is for you to decide," the priest continued, gazing on them
passionately, "whether you will side with him or with the Angel of God!
For I tell you it was none other executed the Divine