be could she bring about the
banishment of the Huguenots."

"I shall do so."

"And offer her in return that we will promote--" he bent forward and
whispered into the prelate's ear.

"What! He would not do it!"

"And why? The queen is dead."

"The widow of the poet Scarron!"

"She is of good birth. Her grandfather and his were dear friends."

"It is impossible."

"But I know his heart, and I say it is possible."

"You certainly know his heart, father, if any can. But such a thought
had never entered my head."

"Then let it enter and remain there. If she will serve the Church, the
Church will serve her. But the king beckons, and I must go."

The thin dark figure hastened off through the throng of courtiers, and
the great Bishop of Meaux remained standing with his chin upon his
breast, sunk in reflection.

By this time all the court was assembled in the _Grand Salon_, and the
huge room was gay from end to end with the silks, the velvets, and the
brocades of the ladies, the glitter of jewels, the flirt of painted
fans, and the sweep of plume or aigrette. The grays, blacks, and browns
of the men's coats toned down the mass of colour, for all must be dark
when the king was dark, and only the blues of the officers' uniforms,
and the pearl and gray of the musketeers of the guard, remained to call
back those early days of the reign when the men had vied with the women
in the costliness and brilliancy of their wardrobes. And if dresses had
changed, manners had done so even more. The old levity and the old
passions lay doubtless very near the surface, but grave faces and
serious talk were the fashion of the hour. It was no longer the lucky
_coup_ at the lansquenet table, the last comedy of Moliere, or the new
opera of Lully about which they gossiped, but it was on the evils of
Jansenism, on the expulsion of Arnauld from the Sorbonne, on the
insolence of Pascal, or on the comparative merits of two such popular
preachers as Bourdaloue and Massilon. So, under a radiant ceiling and
over a many-coloured floor, surrounded by immortal paintings, set
thickly in gold and ornament, there moved these nobles and ladies of
France, all moulding themselves upon the one little dark figure in their
midst, who was himself so far from being his own master that he hung
balanced even now between two rival women, who were playing a game in
which the future of France and his own destiny were the stakes.

CHAPTER V.

C