and was through the good offices of him who aspired to the
mastery of all Europe, if not the world.

Charles, unwilling to disoblige one whose principality was the most
powerful of the Austrian provinces he sought to absorb in his scheme for
the unification of all nations, offered no demur to a request fraught
with advantage to himself. Besides, cold and calculating though he was,
the emperor entertained a certain affection for the duke, who on one
occasion, when Charles had been sore beset by the troops of Solyman, had
extricated his royal leader from the alternatives of ignominious capture
or an untimely end. Accordingly, a formal proposal, couched in language
of warm friendship to the king, was despatched by the emperor. When
Francis, with some misgiving, arising from experience with womankind,
laid the matter before Louise, she, to his surprise, proved her devotion
and loyalty by her entire submissiveness, and the king, kissing her hand,
generously vowed the wedding festivities should be worthy of her beauty
and fealty.

Was she thinking of that scene now and the many messages which had
subsequently passed between her distant lover and herself, as the white
fingers ceased to tell the beads? Was she questioning fate and the
future when the rosary fell from her hand and the clinking of the great
glass beads on the hard floor aroused her from a reverie? Languidly she
rose, crossed the room toward a low dressing table, when at the same time
one of the several doors of the apartment opened, admitting the jestress,
Jacqueline, whose long, flowing gown of dark green bore no distinguishing
mark of the motley she had assumed the night before. The dreamy, almost
lethargic, gaze of the princess rested for a moment upon the ardent eyes
of the maid who stood motionless before her.

"The duke's jester who arrived last night awaits your pleasure without,"
said the girl.

"Bid him enter. Stay! The fillet for my hair. Seems he a merry fellow?"

"So merry, Madam, he mimicked the king last night in Fool's hall, beat
Triboulet, appointed knaves in jest to high offices, and had been hanged
for his forwardness but that he narrowly saved his neck by a slender
device."

"What; all that in so short a time!" exclaimed the princess. "A most
presumptuous rogue!"

"The king, Madam, was behind the tapestry and heard it all: his
appointment of Thony as treasurer, because he is apt at palming money;
Brusquet, governor of Guienne,