e to ascertain the cause of the
disturbance.

"It is the Marechal d'Ancre, Sire, who has just alighted," said De
Luynes as he approached the window.

In a few minutes the Italian was announced, and entered the royal
apartment followed by a train of forty gentlemen all magnificently
attired. At this spectacle Louis started from his seat; and with a
bitter smile inquired of the arrogant Marquis his motive for thus
parading before his sovereign a state which could only be intended as a
satire upon his own privations.

To this question the vainglorious adventurer replied in a tone of
affected sympathy and patronage which festered in the heart of the young
King; assuring him that his followers were at his own cost, and not at
that of the state; and concluding his explanation by an offer of
pecuniary aid, and a company of his regiment of Bussy-Zamet, which he
had just brought from Normandy. Justly incensed by such an insult, Louis
commanded him instantly to quit his presence; and he had no sooner
withdrawn, followed by his glittering retinue, than the young monarch
sank back upon his seat, and uttered the most bitter complaints of the
affront to which he had been subjected.[263]

"And to this, Sire," said De Luynes, as he stood beside his royal
master--"to this insult, which is but the precursor of many others, you
have been subjected by the Queen-mother."

"I will revenge myself!" exclaimed Louis with a sudden assumption of
dignity.

"And how?" demanded the favourite emphatically. "You are called a King,
but where are your great nobles? where are the officers of your
household? where are your barons? So many princes, so many powers.
France has no longer a King."

"And my people?" shouted the excited youth.

"You have no people. You are a mere puppet in the hands of an ambitious
woman and an unprincipled adventurer."

"A puppet!" echoed Louis haughtily. "Do I not wear the crown of France?"

"So did Charles IX," was the unmoved reply; "yet he died to make way for
Henri III. Concini and his wife, Sire, come from the same country as
Catherine de Medicis. Isabeau de Baviere was a mother, yet she preferred
her lover to her son." [264]

"Enough, enough, Sir," said Louis, clutching the hilt of his sword; "I
will hear no more, lest it should make me mad!"

De Luynes bowed in silence; he knew that the poisonous seed was sown,
and he was content to wait until it should germinate.

The pecuniary difficulties of the king