Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his
chief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a page
carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. I put it to you, is
that the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!" Dame Isabeau squealed
on a sudden; "you are bruising me."

Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. "The King of England--a
tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny wen upon his neck--here--and
with his left cheek scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as
tapers?" She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited the
answer, seeming not to breathe at all.

"I believe so," the Queen said, "and they say, too, that he has the
damned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer."

"O God!" said Katharine.

"Ay, our only hope now. And may God show him no more mercy than has
this misbegotten English butcher shown us!" the good lady desired,
with fervor. "The hog, having won our Normandy, is now advancing on
Paris itself. He repudiated the Aragonish alliance last August; and
until last August he was content with Normandy, they tell us, but now
he swears to win all France. The man is a madman, and Scythian
Tamburlaine was more lenient. And I do not believe that in all France
there is a cook who understands his business." She went away
whimpering, and proceeded to get tipsy.

The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau had left her; you
may see a hare crouch so at sight of the hounds. Finally the girl
spoke aloud. "Until last August!" Katharine said. "Until last August!
_Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come
to you again_. And I bade this devil's grandson come to me, as my
lover!" Presently she went into her oratory and began to pray.

In the midst of her invocation she wailed: "Fool, fool! How could I
have thought him less than a king!"

You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse and hatred of
herself, the while that town by town fell before the invader like
card-houses. Every rumor of defeat--and the news of some fresh defeat
came daily--was her arraignment; impotently she cowered at God's
knees, knowing herself a murderess, whose infamy was still afoot,
outpacing her prayers, whose victims were battalions. Tarpeia and
Pisidice and Rahab were her sisters; she hungered in her abasement for
Judith's nobler guilt.

In May he came to her. A truce was patched up, and French and English
met amicably in a great plain near M