een willing to hold aloof as
much as his uncle and cousin could wish, save for an angry dislike to
being duped and cajoled; and, moreover, a strong curiosity to hear and
see more of that little passionate bird, fresh from the convent cage.
Her gesture and her eyes irresistibly carried him back to old times,
though whether to an angry blackbird in the yew-tree alleys at Leurre,
or to the eager face that had warned him to save his father, he could
not remember with any distinctness. At any rate, he was surprised to
find himself thinking so little in comparison about the splendid beauty
and winning manners of his discarded spouse, though he quite believed
that, now her captive was beyond her grasp, she was disposed to catch
at him again, and try to retain him, or, as his titillated vanity might
whisper, his personal graces might make her regret the family resolution
which she had obeyed.

CHAPTER VI. FOULLY COZENED

I was the more deceived.--HAMLET

The unhappy Charles IX. had a disposition that in good hands might have
achieved great nobleness; and though cruelly bound and trained to evil,
was no sooner allowed to follow its natural bent than it reached out
eagerly towards excellence. At this moment, it was his mother's policy
to appear to leave the ascendancy to the Huguenot party, and he was
therefore allowed to contract friendships which deceived the intended
victims the more completely, because his admiration and attachment were
spontaneous and sincere. Philip Sidney's varied accomplishment and pure
lofty character greatly attracted the young King, who had leant on his
arm conversing during great part of the ball, and the next morning
sent a royal messenger to invite the two young gentlemen to a part at
pall-mall in the Tuileries gardens.

Pall-mall was either croquet or its nearest relative, and was so
much the fashion that games were given in order to keep up political
influence, perhaps, because the freedom of a garden pastime among groves
and bowers afforded opportunities for those seductive arts on which
Queen Catherine placed so much dependence. The formal gardens, with
their squares of level turf and clipped alleys, afforded excellent scope
both for players and spectators, and numerous games had been set on
foot, from all of which, however, Berenger contrived to exclude himself,
in his restless determination to find out the little Demoiselle de
Nid-de-Merle, or, at least, to discover wheth