trated her being. Day after day she had watched, day after day had
listened; then arrived De Lorge with fervent words of love, and now she
watched _him_, hearkened _him_ . . . and more and more misdoubted,
hesitated, half-inclined and half-afraid; until at last, "one day struck
fierce 'mid many a day struck calm," she gathered all her hesitation,
yielding, courage, into one quick impulse--and flung her glove to the
lions! With the result which we know--of an instant and a fearless
answer to the test; but, as well, an instant confirmation of the worst
she had dreaded.

+ + + + +

It was at the Court of King Francis I of France that it happened--the
most brilliant Court, perhaps, in history, where the flower of French
knighthood bloomed around the gayest, falsest of kings. Romance was in
the air, and so was corruption; poets, artists, worked in every corner,
and so did intrigue and baseness and lust. Round the King was gathered
the _Petite Bande_, the clique within a clique--"that troop of pretty
women who hunted with him, dined with him, talked with him"--led by his
powerful mistress, the Duchesse d'Etampes, friend of the Dauphin's
neglected wife, the Florentine Catherine de Medicis--foe of that wife's
so silently detested rival, "Madame Dame Diane de Poitiers, Grande
Seneschale de Normandie."

The two great mistresses had each her darling poet: the Duchesse
d'Etampes had chosen Clement Marot, who could turn so gracefully the
Psalms of David into verse; La Grande Seneschale, always supreme in
taste, patronised Pierre Ronsard--and this was why Pierre sometimes
found that when he "talked fine to King Francis," the King would yawn in
his face, or whistle and move off to some better amusement.

That was what Francis did one day after the Peace of Cambray had been
signed by France and Spain. He had grown weary of leisure:

"Here we've got peace, and aghast I'm
Caught thinking war the true pastime.
Is there a reason in metre?
Give us your speech, master Peter!"

Peter obediently began, but he had hardly spoken half a dozen words
before the King whistled aloud: "Let's go and look at our lions!"

They went to the courtyard, and as they went, the throng of courtiers
mustered--lords and ladies came as thick as coloured clouds at sunset.
Foremost among them (relates Ronsard in Browning's poem) were De Lorge
and the lady he was "adoring."

"Oh, what a face! One by fit