ieur de Saint-Eustache."

We were standing--at least, La Fosse and I were standing, Louis XIII
sat--in a room, of the Palace of Toulouse, where I had had the honour of
being brought before His Majesty. La Fosse was there, because it would
seem that the King had grown fond of him, and could not be without him
since his coming to Toulouse.

His Majesty was, as usual, so dull and weary--not even roused by the
approaching trial of Montmorency, which was the main business that had
brought him South that even the company of this vapid, shallow, but
irrepressibly good-humoured La Fosse, with his everlasting mythology,
proved a thing desirable.

"I will see," said Louis, "that your friend the Chevalier is placed
under arrest at once, and as much for his attempt upon your life as for
the unstable quality of his political opinions, the law shall deal
with him--conclusively." He sighed. "It always pains me to proceed to
extremes against a man of his stamp. To deprive a fool of his head seems
a work of supererogation."

I inclined my head, and smiled at his pleasantry. Louis the just rarely
permitted himself to jest, and when he did his humour was as like unto
humour as water is like unto wine. Still, when a monarch jests, if you
are wise, if you have a favour to sue, or a position at Court to seek or
to maintain, you smile, for all that the ineptitude of his witless wit
be rather provocative of sorrow.

"Nature needs meddling with at times," hazarded La Fosse, from behind
His Majesty's chair. "This Saint-Eustache is a sort of Pandora's box,
which it is well to close ere--"

"Go to the devil," said the King shortly. "We are not jesting. We have
to do justice."

"Ah! Justice," murmured La Fosse; "I have seen pictures of the lady.
She covers her eyes with a bandage, but is less discreet where the other
beauties of her figure are in question."

His Majesty blushed. He was above all things a chaste-minded man, modest
as a nun. To the immodesty rampant about him he was in the habit of
closing his eyes and his ears, until the flagrancy or the noise of it
grew to proportions to which he might remain neither blind nor deaf.

"Monsieur de la Fosse," said he in an austere voice, "you weary me, and
when people weary me I send them away--which is one of the reasons why
I am usually so much alone. I beg that you will glance at that
hunting-book, so that when I have done with Monsieur de Bardelys you may
give me your impressions of it