The Rue De La Ferronnerie.

Chicot had good legs, and he would have made the best use of them to join the man who had beaten Gorenflot if he had not imagined that there might be danger in trying to recognize a man who so evidently wished to avoid it. He thought the best way not to seem to watch them was to pass them; so he ran on, and passed them at the corner of the Rue Tirechappe, and then hid himself at the end of the Rue des Bourdonnais. The two men went on, their hats slouched over their eyes, and their cloaks drawn up over their faces, with a quick and military step, until they reached the Rue de la Ferronnerie. There they stopped and looked round them. Chicot, who was still ahead, saw in the middle of the street, before a house so old that it looked falling to pieces, a litter, attached to which were two horses. The driver had fallen asleep, while a woman, apparently unquiet, was looking anxiously through the blind. Chicot hid himself behind a large atone wall, which served as stalls for the vegetable sellers on the days when the market was held in this street, and watched. Scarcely was he hidden, when he saw the two men approach the litter, one of whom, on seeing the driver asleep, uttered an impatient exclamation, while the other pushed him to awaken him. “Oh, they are compatriots!” thought Chicot. The lady now leaned out of the window, and Chicot saw that she was young, very pale, but very beautiful. The two men approached the litter, and the taller of the two took in both of his the little white hand which was stretched out to him.

“Well, ma mie,” asked he, “how are you?”

“I have been very anxious,” replied she.

“Why the devil did you bring madame to Paris?” said the other man rudely.

“Ma foi! it is a malediction that you must always have a petticoat tacked to your doublet!”

“Ah, dear Agrippa,” replied the man who had spoken first, “it is so great a grief to part from one you love.”

“On my soul, you make me swear to hear you talk! Did you come to Paris to make love? It seems to me that Béarn is large enough for your sentimental promenades, without continuing them in this Babylon, where you have nearly got us killed twenty times today. Go home, if you wish to make love, but, here, keep to your political intrigues, my master.”

“Let him scold, ma mie, and never mind him; I think he would be ill if he did not.”

“But, at least, ventre St. Gris, as you say, get into the litter, and say your sweet things to madame; you will run less risk of being recognized there than in the open street.”

“You are right, Agrippa. Give me a place, ma mie, if you permit me to sit by your side.”

“Permit, sire; I desire it ardently,” replied the lady.

“Sire!” murmured Chicot, who, carried away by an impulse, tried to raise his head, and knocked it against the stone wall. Meanwhile the happy lover profited by the permission given, and seated himself in the litter.

“Oh! how happy I am,” he cried, without attending in the least to the impatience of his friend —“ventre St. Gris, this is a good day. Here are my good Parisians, who execrate me with all their souls, and would kill me if they could, working to smooth my way to the throne, and I have in my arms the woman I love. Where are we, D’Aubigné? when I am king, I will erect here a statue to the genius of the Béarnais.”

“The Béarn ——” began Chicot, but he stopped, for he had given his head a second bump.

“We are in the Rue de la Ferronnerie, sire,” said D’Aubigné, “and it does not smell nice.”

“Get in then, Agrippa, and we will go on.”

“Ma foi, no, I will follow behind; I should annoy you, and, what is worse, you would annoy me.”

“Shut the door then, bear of Béarn, and do as you like.” Then to the coachman he said, “Lavarrenne, you know where.”

The litter went slowly away, followed by D’Aubigné.

“Let me see,” said Chicot, “must I tell Henri what I have seen? Why should I? two men and a woman, who hide themselves; it would be cowardly. I will not tell; that I know it myself is the important point, for is it not I who reign? His love was very pretty, but he loves too often, this dear Henri of Navarre. A year ag............