nknown.

"I will do so, monsieur, since you so positively require it."

A sad smile passed over the lips of the gentleman.

"Place the money on that trunk," said he, turning round and pointing to
the piece of furniture.

Cropole deposited a tolerably large bag as directed, after having taken
from it the amount of his reckoning.

"Now," said he, "I hope monsieur will not give me the pain of not taking
any supper. Dinner has already been refused; this is affronting to the
house of _les Medici_. Look, monsieur, the supper is on the table, and I
venture to say that it is not a bad one."

The unknown asked for a glass of wine, broke off a morsel of bread, and
did not stir from the window whilst he ate and drank.

Shortly after was heard a loud flourish of trumpets; cries arose in the
distance, a confused buzzing filled the lower part of the city, and the
first distinct sound that struck the ears of the stranger was the tramp
of advancing horses.

"The king! the king!" repeated a noisy and eager crowd.

"The king!" cried Cropole, abandoning his guest and his ideas of
delicacy, to satisfy his curiosity.

With Cropole were mingled, and jostled, on the staircase, Madame
Cropole, Pittrino, and the waiters and scullions.

The _cortege_ advanced slowly, lighted by a thousand flambeaux, in the
streets and from the windows.

After a company of musketeers, a closely ranked troop of gentlemen, came
the litter of monsieur le cardinal, drawn like a carriage by four black
horses. The pages and people of the cardinal marched behind.

Next came the carriage of the queen-mother, with her maids of honor at
the doors, her gentlemen on horseback at both sides.

The king then appeared, mounted upon a splendid horse of Saxon breed,
with a flowing mane. The young prince exhibited, when bowing to some
windows from which issued the most animated acclamations, a noble and
handsome countenance, illuminated by the flambeaux of his pages.

By the side of the king, though a little in the rear, the Prince de
Conde, M. Dangeau, and twenty other courtiers, followed by their people
and their baggage, closed this veritably triumphant march. The pomp was
of a military character.

Some of the courtiers--the elder ones, for instance--wore traveling
dresses; but all the rest were clothed in warlike panoply. Many wore the
gorget and buff coat of the times of Henry IV. and Louis XIII.

When the king passed before him, the unknown, who had leant