th of arms has won. Charles
the Bold despised the weakness of the Swiss, and the devotion of the
weak Swiss crushed him. Weak, you say? Love is never weak. Fifty
years ago a weak girl saved France because of her great love for
France, and to-day another just as weak might ruin France through
another great love. Never despise the power of love nor call it weak
even in the weakest. If faith can remove mountains, love is greater
than faith, and of mademoiselle's devotion to the Dauphin I have no
doubt."

"Who has the better claim upon it?" answered La Mothe sullenly.

"Granted, but that is not the point. And what if the devotion is
misdirected? It is a quality of love that it only sees the lights in
the jewels and not the flaws. If love saw all the flaws in us it would
hardly be love. What if Mademoiselle de Vesc, seeing the boy
neglected--and I grant the neglect,--seeing him unhappy--and I grant
the unhappiness,--seeing him denied his high position--and I grant the
denial while I assert that the King, who is a wise king, must have wise
reasons I do not understand; what if Mademoiselle de Vesc, I say,
seeing all these things and understanding the reasons for them as
little as I do, seeing no deeper than her devotion and knowing nothing
of the King's wise reasons, were moved by this same devotion to some
desperate effort which would right this wrong at any cost? Supposing
that were so, what would hold her back? Fear? She is no coward, and
there is no such courage on God's earth as the courage of a loving
woman. Weakness? Love is strong as death and stronger, for love
builds up where death can only destroy. The crime? In her eyes the
crime lies in the unhappiness and neglect of Amboise, and to right the
wrong by any means, however desperate, would be no offence before God
or man. What would hold her back? I ask you. Nothing, nothing at
all."

"Granted," said La Mothe, impressed in spite of himself and falling
back upon the last resort of baffled argument. "It is all very
plausible, but I do not believe it all the same."

"Because you are drunken," retorted Commines, "and because, too, there
are none so blind as those who will not see. But supposing I am right,
is not the King justified, and are not we, the King's servants,
justified too? And is the Dauphin such a fool as to be blind to this
devotion, he who has known so little love in his life? Stephen, if the
King is right and Mademoiselle de Ve