the disguise of an archer of
the royal guard the better to pursue his love follies among the people,
now gazed curiously upon one who had befooled the entire court.

"You took your departure, my Lord," said the king, quietly, "without
waiting for the order of your going."

"He who enacts the fool, your Majesty, without patent to office must
needs have good legs," replied the young man. "Else will he have his
fingers burnt."

"Only his fingers?" returned the monarch with a smile, somewhat
sardonic.

"Truly," thought the other, as Francis strode away, "the king regrets
the fool's escape from Notre Dame and the fagots."

During the next day Charles called first for his leech and then for a
priest, but whether the former or the latter, or both, temporarily
assuaged the restlessness of mortal disease, that night he was enabled
to be present at the character dances given in his honor by the ladies
of the court in the great gallery of the chateau.

At a signal from the cornet, gitterns, violas and pipes began to play,
and Francis and his august guest, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, and the
emperor's sister, Marguerite of Navarre, entered the hall, followed by
the dauphin and Catharine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers, the Duchesse
d'Etampes; marshal, chancellor and others of the king's friends and
counselors; courtiers, poets, jesters, philosophers; a goodly company,
such as few monarchs could summon at their beck and call. Charles' eye
lighted; even his austere nature momentarily kindled amid that
brilliant spectacle; Francis' palace of pleasure was an intoxicating
antidote to spleen or hypochondria. And when the court ladies, in a
dazzling band, appeared in the dance, led by the Duchesse d'Etampes, he
openly expressed his approval.

"Ah, Madam," he said to the Queen of Navarre, "there is little of the
monastery about our good brother's court."

"Did your Majesty expect we should cloister you?" she answered, with a
lively glance.

He gazed meditatively upon the "Rose of Valois," or the "Pearl of the
Valois," as she was sometimes called; then a shadow fell upon him; the
futility of ambition; the emptiness of pleasure. In scanty attire, the
Duchesse d'Etampes, with the king, flashed before him; the former, all
beauty, all grace, her little feet trampling down care, so lightly.
Somberly he watched her, and sighed. Mentally he compared himself to
Francis; they had traveled the road of life together, discarding their