"Is not this a lie? Marries the daughter of France to the Butcher of
Agincourt? It is not to be believed. You have not heard aright."

"If you cannot believe that, Jacques d'Arc, then you have a difficult
task indeed before you, for worse is to come. Any child that is born of
that marriage--if even a girl--is to inherit the thrones of both England
and France, and this double ownership is to remain with its posterity
forever!"

"Now that is certainly a lie, for it runs counter to our Salic law, and
so is not legal and cannot have effect," said Edmond Aubrey, called the
Paladin, because of the armies he was always going to eat up some day.
He would have said more, but he was drowned out by the clamors of the
others, who all burst into a fury over this feature of the treaty, all
talking at once and nobody hearing anybody, until presently Haumette
persuaded them to be still, saying:

"It is not fair to break him up so in his tale; pray let him go on.
You find fault with his history because it seems to be lies. That were
reason for satisfaction--that kind of lies--not discontent. Tell the rest,
Etienne."

"There is but this to tell: Our King, Charles VI., is to reign until he
dies, then Henry V. of England is to be Regent of France until a child
of his shall be old enough to--"

"That man is to reign over us--the Butcher? It is lies! all lies!" cried
the Paladin. "Besides, look you--what becomes of our Dauphin? What says
the treaty about him?"

"Nothing. It takes away his throne and makes him an outcast."

Then everybody shouted at once and said the news was a lie; and all
began to get cheerful again, saying, "Our King would have to sign the
treaty to make it good; and that he would not do, seeing how it serves
his own son."

But the Sunflower said: "I will ask you this: Would the Queen sign a
treaty disinheriting her son?"

"That viper? Certainly. Nobody is talking of her. Nobody expects better
of her. There is no villainy she will stick at, if it feed her spite;
and she hates her son. Her signing it is of no consequence. The King
must sign."

"I will ask you another thing. What is the King's condition? Mad, isn't
he?"

"Yes, and his people love him all the more for it. It brings him near to
them by his sufferings; and pitying him makes them love him."

"You say right, Jacques d'Arc. Well, what would you of one that is mad?
Does he know what he does? No. Does he do what others make him do? Yes.
Now, then, I