their
pleasant walks in the quickly-shortening days of autumn. The willows
began to drop their narrow flame-shaped leaves into the current of the
Loire after every gust. And in the windless dawns, as soon as the sun
struck the long alignment of ashes, these dainty trees proceeded to
denude themselves of their greenery with sharp little reports like toy
pistols.

As for Jean-aux-Choux, he had great business on hand. Every day he
invented some new folly at the Chateau. He laughed with the pages, who
told their masters, who in turn told their ladies. And so all the world
soon knew that the Fool of the Three Henries was to be present at the
meeting of Parliament. Well, so much the better. In such times they
needed some diversion.

Jean came little to Anthony the Calvinist's hostel. That was too
dangerous. Yet often by night he would slip through the little
river-door which opened into the courtyard of Madame Granier's house, to
talk a while with his dead master's daughter and her Professor--also to
observe, with his small twinkling grey eyes, the lie of the land.

Indeed, it was a time in which to be mightily circumspect. The town of
Blois was filled to overflowing with all the hot-heads of the League.
The demagogues of Paris, the full Council of the Sixteen, led by
Chapelle Marteau and Launay, cheered on the princes of Lorraine to
execute their firm intention of coercing Henry III., and compelling him
to deliver the crown into the hands of the Duke of Guise and his
brothers--the princes of the House of Lorraine.

By permission of the Bearnais, to whom, as his cousin and chieftain, the
Abbe John had now made solemn offer of his allegiance, that youth was
permitted to remain as an additional pair of eyes in the Chateau
itself--and also, he told himself, as a good sword, not too far away,
in case any harm should threaten Claire in her river-side lodging.

The green robe of the Professor of Eloquence, with its fur sleeves and
golden collar now wholly repaired by the clever fingers of Claire, whose
care for her father's wardrobe had given her skill in needlework, passed
to and fro in all the stairways and corridors of the Chateau. He was
welcome to the King, who knew the classic orators, and had devoted much
time to the cultivation of a ready and fluent mode of address. And it
was, indeed, no other than our excellent Professor Anatole who prepared
and set in order, with sounding words and cunning allusions, the famous
ope