treason!"

"Good!" murmured the bishop, still eating. "Not to love is treason!"

"Who alone is the culprit? Whose heart alone is filled with umbrage,
hatred, pique?"

"Triboulet! Triboulet, the traitor!" suddenly cried the countess,
sprightly as a child.

"Yes; Triboulet, the traitor!" exclaimed the fool, pointing the wand of
folly at the hunchback.

Even Francis' offended face relaxed. "Positively, I shall never hang
this fellow," he said grimly to Marguerite.

"Before this tribunal of ladies whose beauty and learning he has
outraged by his disaffection and spleen, I summon him for trial,"
continued the duke's jester. "Triboulet, arise! Illustrious ladies of
the Court of Love, the offender is in your hands."

"A little monster!" spoke up Diane with a gesture of aversion, real or
affected.

"He is certainly somewhat reprehensible," added the Queen of Navarre,
whose tender heart ever inclined to the weaker side.

"An unconscionable rogue," murmured the bishop, complacently clasping
his fat fingers before him.

"So he is already tried by the Church and the tribunal," went on the
_plaisant_ of the duke. "The Church hath excommunicated him and the
Court of Love--"

"Will banish him!" exclaimed the countess mirthfully, regarding the
captious monarch with mock defiance.

"Yes, banish him; turn him out," echoed Catharine, carelessly.

"But, your Majesty!" remonstrated the alarmed Triboulet, turning to the
monarch whose favor he had that day enjoyed.

"Appeal not to me!" returned Francis, sternly. "Here Venus rules!"
And he gallantly inclined to the countess.

"Venus at whom he scoffs!" broke in Jacqueline, shrilly, leaning back
in her chair with her hands on her hips.

"You witch!--you sorceress!--it was you who"--he hissed with venomous
glance.

"Hear him!" exclaimed the girl, lightly. "He calls me
witch--sorceress--because, forsooth, I am a woman!"

"A woman--a devil"--muttered Triboulet between his closed teeth.

"And now," she cried, rising, impetuously, "he says that women are
devils! What shall we do with him?"

"Pelt him out!" answered the countess. "Pelt him out!"

With peals of merriment and triumphant shouts, the court, of one
accord, directed a fusillade of fruits, nuts and other viands at the
head and person of the raging and hapless buffoon, the countess
herself, apple in hand--Eve bent upon vengeance--leading in the
assault. The other tables responded with a cross-fire, an