ish him to be let alone. If he will fight St.
Germain, and kill or be killed, is that the King's affair that he need
interfere? I ask for no interference," M. de Saintonge continued
bitterly, "only for fair play and no favour. And for M. de Clan who is
a Republican at heart, and a Bironist, and has never done anything but
thwart the King, for him to come now, and--faugh! it makes me sick."

"Yes," I said drily; "I see."

"You understand me?"

"Yes," I said, "I think so."

"Very well," he replied haughtily--he had gradually wrought himself
into a passion; "be good enough to bear my request in mind then; and my
services also. I ask no more, M. de Rosny, than is due to me and to
the King's honour."

And with that, and scarcely an expression of civility, he left me.
Some may wonder, I know, that, having in the Edict of Blois, which
forbade duelling and made it a capital offence, an answer to convince
even his arrogance, I did not use this weapon; but, as a fact, the
edict was not published until the following June, when, partly in
consequence of this affair and at my instance, the King put it forth.

Saintonge could scarcely have cleared the gates before his prediction
was fulfilled. His enemy arrived hot foot, and entered to me with a
mien so much lowered by anxiety and trouble that I hardly knew him for
the man who had a hundred times rebuffed me, and whom the King's offers
had found consistently obdurate. All I had ever known of M. de Clan
heightened his present humility and strengthened his appeal; so that I
felt pity for him proportioned not only to his age and necessity, but
to the depth of his fall. Saintonge had rightly anticipated his
request; the first, he said, with a trace of his old pride, that he had
made to the King in eleven years: his son, his only son and only
child--the single heir of his name! He stopped there and looked at me;
his eyes bright, his lips trembling and moving without sound, his hands
fumbling on his knees.

"But," I said, "your son wishes to fight, M. de Clan?"

He nodded.

"And you cannot hinder him?"

He shrugged his shoulders grimly. "No," he said; "he is a St. Germain."

"Well, that is just my case," I answered. "You see this young fellow
St. Mesmin was commended to me, and is, in a manner, of my household;
and that is a fatal objection. I cannot possibly act against him in
the manner you propose. You must see that; and for my wishes, he
respects them less th