ascons, like your colonel-general of infantry."

"And like you, Chicot. However, I have forty-five formidable swords at
command."

"Commanded by the 46th, whom they call D'Epernon."

"Not exactly."

"By whom, then?"

"De Loignac."

"And it is with them you think to defend yourself?"

"Yes, mordieu! yes."

"Well, I have more troops than you."

"You have troops?"

"Why not?"

"What are they?"

"You shall hear. First, all the army that MM. de Guise are raising in
Lorraine."

"Are you mad?"

"No; a real army--at least six thousand men."

"But how can you, who fear M. de Mayenne so much, be defended by the
soldiers of M. de Guise?"

"Because I am dead."

"Again this joke!"

"No; I have changed my name and position."

"What are you, then?"

"I am Robert Briquet, merchant and leaguer."

"You a leaguer?"

"A devoted one, so that I keep away from M. de Mayenne. I have, then,
for me, first, the army of Lorraine--six thousand men; remember that
number."

"I listen."

"Then, at least one hundred thousand Parisians."

"Famous soldiers!"

"Sufficiently so to annoy you much: 6,000 and 100,000 are 106,000; then
there is the pope, the Spaniards, M. de Bourbon, the Flemings, Henry of
Navarre, the Duc d'Anjou--"

"Have you done?" interrupted Henri, impatiently.

"There still remain three classes of people."

"What are they?"

"First the Catholics, who hate you because you only three parts
exterminated the Huguenots: then the Huguenots, who hate you because you
have three parts exterminated them; and the third party is that which
desires neither you, nor your brother, nor M. de Guise, but your
brother-in-law, Henri of Navarre."

"Provided that he abjure. But these people of whom you speak are all
France."

"Just so. These are my troops as a leaguer; now add, and compare."

"You are joking, are you not, Chicot?"

"Is it a time to joke, when you are alone, against all the world?"

Henri assumed an air of royal dignity. "Alone I am," said he, "but at
the same time I alone command. You show me an army, but where is the
chief? You will say, M. de Guise; but do I not keep him at Nancy? M. de
Mayenne, you say yourself, is at Soissons, the Duc d'Anjou is at
Brussels, and the king of Navarre at Pau; so that if I am alone, I am
free. I am like a hunter in the midst of a plain, waiting to see his
prey come within his reach."

"On the contrary; you are the game whom the hunters track to his lair."