fts are indeed princely,
and this one is the most royal of all!"

For King Louis had been entirely right in thinking nothing would please
the Lady Anne quite so much as a piece of fine illumination.

Still holding the book carefully in her hands, she at once seated
herself in a deep, cushioned chair, and began slowly to turn over the
pages, taking the keenest pleasure, as she did so, in every fresh beauty
on which her eyes fell. When she had gone about half through the book,
she lifted it up to look more closely at an especially beautiful initial
letter, and then, all at once, out fluttered the loose leaf which
Gabriel had put in.

As it fell to the floor, a little page near by hastened to pick it up,
and, bending on one knee, presented it to Lady Anne. At first she
frowned a little, for she thought, as had Brother Stephen, that the
book must have been badly bound. But when she took the leaf in her hand,
to her surprise, she saw that it was different from the others, and that
it had not been bound in with them; and then she read over the writing
very carefully. When she had finished, she sat for some time, just as
Brother Stephen had done, holding the page in her hand, while her face
wore a very tender expression.

Lady Anne was really deeply touched by Gabriel's little prayer, and she
wished greatly that she herself might find a way to help him and his
family out of their trouble.

But the more she thought about it, she realized that she had no
authority over a Norman nobleman, and that no one in France, except the
king, was powerful enough to compel Count Pierre to release the peasant
Viaud from imprisonment.

So going over to a little writing-table, she took out a thin sheet of
parchment, a quaint goose-quill pen, and a small horn full of ink, and
wrote a letter which she addressed to King Louis. Then she took the
loose leaf on which Gabriel's prayer was written, and, folding it in
with her letter, tied the little packet with a thread of scarlet silk
(for no one used envelopes then), and sealed it with some red wax. And
on the wax she pressed a carved ring which she wore, and which left a
print that looked like a tiny tuft of ermine fur encircled by a bit of
knotted cord; for this was Lady Anne's emblem, as it was called, and
King Louis, seeing it, would know at once that the packet came from her.

Then she went down into the great hall of the castle, and sent one of
her Breton gentlemen to bring Count Henri.