en warmer
than that between Jeanne and Felix.

However, we went down to the harbour, Felix and I, and aboard his ship,
an uncomfortable-looking craft, with but scanty accommodation for a
passenger. But Roger did not mind this. He had sailed in a much worse
vessel, he said, and a far longer distance than the passage across the
Channel.

Felix shrugged his shoulders. "On land," he remarked, "danger does not
alarm me, but I should not care to put to sea in such a boat as that!"
in which I was at one with him.

"I will choose a better craft next time," laughed Roger, as, after
bidding him farewell, we walked across the gangway to the wharf, where
we stood waving our hands until he disappeared from sight.

"Does he really mean to return?" my comrade asked.

"I think so. He has evidently made up his mind to visit Paris."

"I fancy," said Felix rather bitterly, it struck me, "that he will be
satisfied with Rochelle, as long as Queen Joan holds her Court there!"

My friend was not in the best of humour, but he recovered his spirits in
a day or two, and before a week had passed was as lively and merry as
usual. Black Care and Felix were not congenial companions.

Nothing happened after Roger's departure until the spring of 1571, when
we heard of the king's marriage with Elizabeth of Germany. None of our
leaders attended the ceremony, which seemed to have been a very
brilliant affair, the new queen riding into Paris in an open litter hung
with cloth of silver, drawn by the very finest mules shod with the same
gleaming metal.

A courier who waited upon the Admiral declared that the decorations
were a triumph of art, and that the bridge of Notre Dame was like a
scene taken bodily from fairy land. A triumphal arch was erected at each
end of the bridge; the roadway was covered with an awning smothered in
flowers and evergreens, while between every window on the first floor of
the houses were figures of nymphs bearing fruits and flowers, and
crowned with laurel.

But, although debarred from attending the marriage of the king, we were
not without our rejoicings. Our noble leader was married to Jacqueline
of Montbel, Countess of Entremont, who came to la Rochelle attended by
fifty gentlemen of her kindred. Headed by Coligny, we rode out to meet
her, and the cannon thundered forth a joyous salute. The citizens lined
the streets, and if our decorations were not as gay as those of Paris,
there was, perhaps, a more genuine heart