me past he had
found no opportunity to "make himself populace" and espouse the domestic
interests of some man "engarrie" (an old word still used in Tours,
meaning engaged) in litigious affairs, so that he shouldered the
anxieties of Maitre Cornelius eagerly, and also the secret sorrows of
the Comtesse de Saint-Vallier. Several times during dinner he said to
his daughter:--

"Who, think you, could have robbed my silversmith? The robberies now
amount to over twelve hundred thousand crowns in eight years. Twelve
hundred thousand crowns, messieurs!" he continued, looking at the
seigneurs who were serving him. "Notre Dame! with a sum like that what
absolutions could be bought in Rome! And I might, Pasques-Dieu! bank
the Loire, or, better still, conquer Piedmont, a fine fortification
ready-made for this kingdom."

When dinner was over, Louis XI. took his daughter, his doctor, and the
grand provost, with an escort of soldiers, and rode to the hotel
de Poitiers in Tours, where he found, as he expected, the Comte de
Saint-Vallier awaiting his wife, perhaps to make away with her life.

"Monsieur," said the king, "I told you to start at once. Say farewell
to your wife now, and go to the frontier; you will be accompanied by an
escort of honor. As for your instructions and credentials, they will be
in Venice before you get there."

Louis then gave the order--not without adding certain secret
instructions--to a lieutenant of the Scottish guard to take a squad of
men and accompany the ambassador to Venice. Saint-Vallier departed in
haste, after giving his wife a cold kiss which he would fain have made
deadly. Louis XI. then crossed over to the Malemaison, eager to begin
the unravelling of the melancholy comedy, lasting now for eight years,
in the house of his silversmith; flattering himself that, in his
quality of king, he had enough penetration to discover the secret of the
robberies. Cornelius did not see the arrival of the escort of his royal
master without uneasiness.

"Are all those persons to take part in the inquiry?" he said to the
king.

Louis XI. could not help smiling as he saw the fright of the miser and
his sister.

"No, my old crony," he said; "don't worry yourself. They will sup at
Plessis, and you and I alone will make the investigation. I am so good
in detecting criminals, that I will wager you ten thousand crowns I
shall do so now."

"Find him, sire, and make no wager."

They went at once into the strong