rward, some of you.--Hark ye, villain," he said in his harshest tone,
"do you know the difference between argent and or, except in the shape
of coined money?"

"For pity's sake, your Grace, be good unto me!--Noble King Louis, speak
for me!"

"Speak for thyself," said the Duke. "In a word, art thou herald or not?"

"Only for this occasion!" acknowledged the detected official.

"Now, by Saint George!" said the Duke, eyeing Louis askance, "we know
no king--no gentleman--save one, who would have so prostituted the noble
science on which royalty and gentry rest, save that King who sent to
Edward of England a serving man disguised as a herald."

[The heralds of the middle ages were regarded almost as sacred
characters. It was treasonable to strike a herald, or to counterfeit
the character of one. Yet Louis "did not hesitate to practise such an
imposition when he wished to enter into communication with Edward IV of
England.... He selected, as an agentfit for his purpose, a simple valet.
This man... he disguised as a herald, with all the insignia of his
office, and sent him in that capacity to open a communication with the
English army. The stratagem, though of so fraudulent a nature, does
not seem to have been necessarily called for, since all that King Louis
could gain by it would be that he did not commit himself by sending a
more responsible messenger. ... Ferne... imputes this intrusion on their
rights in some degree to necessity. 'I have heard some,' he says, '...
allow of the action of Louis XI who had so unknightly a regard both of
his own honour, and also of armes, that he seldom had about his court
any officer at armes. And therefore, at such time as Edward IV, King of
England,... lay before the town of Saint Quentin, the same French
King, for want of a herald to carry his mind to the English King, was
constrained to suborn a vadelict, or common serving man, with a trumpet
banner, having a hole made through the middest for this preposterous
herauld to put his head through, and to cast it over his shoulders
instead of a better coat armour of France. And thus came this hastily
arrayed courier as a counterfeit officer at armes, with instructions
from his sovereign's mouth to offer peace to our King.' Ferne's Blazen
of Gentry, 1586, p. 161.--S.]

"Such a stratagem," said Louis, laughing, or affecting to laugh, "could
only be justified at a Court where no herald were at the time, and when
the emergency was urgent. Bu