as the dinner over than he rose and expressed his intention
of delivering his letters of introduction in person to the English
ambassador and to the Admiral de Coligny, whom, as his father's old
friend and the hero of his boyhood, he was most anxious to see. The
Chevalier demurred to this. Were it not better to take measures at once
for making himself presentable, and Narcisse had already supplied him
with directions to the fashionable hair-cutter, &c. It would be taken
amiss if he went to the Admiral before going to present himself to the
King.

'And I cannot see my cousins till I go to court?' asked Berenger.

'Most emphatically No. Have I not told you that the one is in the suite
of the young Queen, the other in that of the Queen-mother? I will myself
present you, if only you will give me the honour of your guidance.'

'With all thanks, Monsieur,' said Berenger; 'my grandfather's desire
was that I should lose no time in going to his friend Sir Francis
Walsingham, and I had best submit myself to his judgment as to my
appearance at court.'

On this point Berenger was resolute, though the Chevalier recurred
to the danger of any proceeding that might be unacceptable at court.
Berenger, harassed and impatient, repeated that he did not care about
the court, and wished merely to fulfil his purpose and return, at which
his kinsman shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, and muttered to
himself, 'Ah, what does he know! He will regret it when too late; but I
have done my best.'

Berenger paid little attention to this, but calling Landry Osbert, and
a couple of his men, he bade them take their swords and bucklers, and
escort him in his walk through Paris. He set off with a sense of escape,
but before he had made many steps, he was obliged to turn and warn
Humfrey and Jack that they were not to walk swaggering along the
streets, with hand on sword, as if every Frenchman they saw was the
natural foe of their master.

Very tall were the houses, very close and extremely filthy the streets,
very miserable the beggars; and yet here and there was to be seen the
open front of a most brilliant shop, and the thoroughfares were crowded
with richly-dressed gallants. Even the wider streets gave little space
for the career of the gay horsemen who rode along them, still less
for the great, cumbrous, though gaily-decked coaches, in which ladies
appeared glittering with jewels and fan in hand, with tiny white dogs on
their knees.

T