some even in death. "Ah! God wishes to
punish me. Just for one little time in my life has there been born in
me, and taken possession of me, a naughty idea, and my patron saint is
angry, and deprives me of the sweetest gentleman I have ever seen. By
the rood, and by the soul of my father, I will hang every man who has
had a hand in this!"

"Madame," cried Jacques de Beaune, springing from the table, and
falling at the feet of the Regent, "I will live to serve you, and am
so little bruised that that I promise you this night as many joys as
there are months in the year, in imitation of the Sieur Hercules, a
pagan baron. For the last twenty days," he went on (thinking that
matters would be smoothed by a little lying), "I have met you again
and again. I fell madly in love with you, yet dared not, by reason of
my great respect for your person, make an advance. You can imagine how
intoxicated I must have been with your royal beauties, to have
invented the trick to which I owe the happiness of being at your
feet."

Thereupon he kissed her amorously, and gave her a look that would have
overcome any scruples. The Regent, by means of time, which respects
not queens, was, as everyone knows, in her middle age. In this
critical and autumnal season, women formally virtuous and loveless
desire now here, now there, to enjoy, unknown to the world, certain
hours of love, in order that they may not arrive in the other world
with hands and heart alike empty, through having left the fruit of the
tree of knowledge untasted. The lady of Beaujeu, without appearing to
be astonished while listening to the promises of this young man, since
royal personages ought to be accustomed to having them by dozens, kept
this ambitious speech in the depths of her memory or of her registry
of love, which caught fire at his words. Then she raised the
Tourainian, who still found in his misery the courage to smile at his
mistress, who had the majesty of a full-blown rose, ears like shoes,
and the complexion of a sick cat, but was so well-dressed, so fine in
figure, so royal of foot, and so queenly in carriage, that he might
still find in this affair means to gain his original object.

"Who are you?" said the Regent, putting on the stern look of her
father.

"I am your very faithful subject, Jacques de Beaune, son of your
steward, who has fallen into disgrace in spite of his faithful
services."

"Ah, well!" replied the lady, "lay yourself on the table agai