When, out of his experience, the devil formed schools to teach apt humanity, he set them in the extremes of life, the noisome dens of packed cities and the courts of kings. Misery forgets God, that by theft and murder it may live out yet one more unhappy day, and greatness climbs upon its own shame to yet more dishonoured honour.

Never was there such a place as Plessis for intrigue. From Monsieur de Beaujeu, the King's son-in-law, down to the kitchen scullions, there was not a man but mined or countermined to gain some private advantage; nor, in all the palace, was there a finger-nail—mine among the rest—but itched to scratch the King's favour. That much I learned in my seven days of waiting.

Through Monsieur de Commines' influence almost every door was open to me, and by his instructions I used my liberty freely.

"Who knows to what service you may be put," he added; "Plessis is not to be turned inside out in a week, but a week may teach you not to show yourself a fool."

So day by day I went my rounds by the outer, middle and inner walls; the courtyards, the galleries, the anterooms, the sparrows' nests, the towers, the donjon, even to the bear-pit and the sheds where were housed that varied collection of strange beasts His Majesty had gathered from the four corners of the earth to distract his thoughts, and show the world how active was his mind. The quarters of the Scottish archers I avoided as far as possible. Though Monsieur de Commines did not love these interloping Northmen, nor they him, they were civil enough to me for his sake, or, rather, for the sake of his influence. But I could not understand half their guttural jargon.

The King I also avoided, and only saw from a distance until the day he sent for me; once, far off, his scarlet satin cloak and heavy furs showing like a giant poppy with the brown capsule half pushed off; once sunning himself in a narrow court, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, his shoulders hunched to his ears, decrepit, shrunken, every muscle in collapse; and once, not an hour later, on the parapet of the outer wall, bowing a gracious acknowledgment to a group of the good folk of Tours who saluted him from a discreet and safe distance; the half-dead man was then very much alive, and so rumour was justified of her children!

Tied though he was to the King's girdle, it was Monsieur de Commines' custom to steal an hour nightly, and listen to my rehearsal of the day's lessons.

"What strikes me most," said I, as my week drew to an end, "is the confusion of tongues within the walls. There is the liquid music of Provence, the iron rasp of Normandy, the clipped French of Paris, the uncouth burr of Gascony; I even heard a Flanders oath or two to-day."

"Eh?" said Monseigneur, looking up at me; "Flanders? Did you say Flanders?"

"Yes, Jehan Flemalle the bearward. The brute clawed at him as he fed it, and he drew back swearing; I know a Flanders curse when I hear it, and so, I think, should you," I added, laughing.

But, so far from breaking up, the gravity on his face deepened, and for a full minute he sat with pursed mouth and narrowed eyes, staring into vacancy out of window. When I would have spoken he shook his head and snarled an incoherence, warning me into silence with a little impatient twist of his hand. But suddenly his face lit up, and he turned upon me, his eyes shining.

"Jehan Flemalle—Jan Flemael! By the splendour of God, I begin to understand!" then he checked himself, and sat watching me, as he had sat that night in the Louvre, when I knew to my discomfort that the keenest brain in France was reckoning up not my strength, but my weakness. "Do you know," he went on at last, his voice suave and smooth, with all trace of excitement gone from it, "I distrust this Jehan Flemalle. What if he starves the King's beasts to his own profit? He is an Angevin, and—Yes, here is your chance to do the King a service. From time to time these wild creatures have cost immense sums. I hate them myself, but the King loves them, and visits them almost daily. Watch this Jehan Flemalle; watch him when alone with the beasts, note whom he consorts with, and if they meet in secret try and catch them in talk."

"What, Monseigneur? Play spy upon a butcher?"

"Ay! on a butcher," he said harshly; "the word is a good one, and you could not better it in a year. As to playing spy, I'd have you understand, Monsieur, that if I bid you lay your ear to the crack of a maid's door for the King's service, you must do it, or quit Plessis. There are two types of useful men in the world; those who think and are obeyed without question, and those who obey without question, but do not think. For the present, be content to be the second, that one day you may perhaps be the first. What! Monsieur Hellewyl, do you, who as yet are not a little finger in Plessis, presume to call yourself a brain?" Rising he strode to the door, and turning, shook a monitory if not a menacing forefinger at me. "Remember," he went on, "in this thing I am the King and you have your orders. If your dignity is not supple enough to stoop to a little thing, how can it rise to a great? And who are you to dare to question whys and wherefores in the King's business?"

Without waiting for an answer he was gone. And what answer was possible? Ever since Solignac was burned the whole force of my schooling had been, None dare cross the King's will! It was written in the ashes of my father's house, it was taught by the mouth of the King's friend, it met me at the four gates of the Louvre, the dangling-rope............