ood."

"How so, sire?"

"Why, if one does not know the language in which you are printed."

"Oh, sire, kings know everything."

"That is what we tell the people, and what flatterers tell us."

"Then, sire, it is useless for me to recite to your majesty the letter
which I learned by heart, since neither of us would understand it."

"Is Latin not very much like Italian?"

"So they say, sire."

"And Spanish?"

"I believe so."

"Then let us try. I know a little Italian, and my Gascon patois is
something like Spanish: perhaps I may understand Latin without ever
having learned it."

"Your majesty orders me to repeat it, then?"

"I beg you, dear M. Chicot."

Chicot began.

"Frater carissime,

"Sincerus amo quo te prosequebatur germanus noster Carolus Nonus,
functus nuper, colet usque regiam nostram et pectori meo pertinaciter
adhoeret."

"If I am not mistaken," said Henri, interrupting, "they speak in this
phrase of love, obstinacy, and of my brother, Charles IX."

"Very likely," said Chicot; "Latin is such a beautiful language, that
all that might go in one sentence."

"Go on," said the king.

Chicot began again, and Henri listened with the utmost calm to all the
passages about Turenne and his wife, only at the word "Turennius," he
said:

"Does not 'Turennius' mean Turenne?"

"I think so, sire."

"And 'Margota' must be the pet name which my brothers gave to their
sister Marguerite, my beloved wife."

"It is possible," said Chicot; and he continued his letter to the end
without the king's face changing in the least.

"Is it finished?" asked Henri, when he stopped.

"Yes, sire."

"It ought to be superb."

"I think so, also, sire."

"How unlucky that I only understood two words, 'Turennius' and
'Margota.'"

"An irreparable misfortune, sire, unless your majesty decides on having
it translated by some one."

"Oh! no; you yourself, M. Chicot, who were so discreet in destroying the
autograph, you would not counsel me to make this letter public?"

"But I think that the king's letter to you, recommended to me so
carefully, and sent to your majesty by a private hand, must contain
something important for your majesty to know."

"Yes, but to confide these important things to any one, I must have
great confidence in him."

"Certainly."

"Well, I have an idea. Go and find my wife. She is learned, and will
understand it if you recite it to her; then she can explain it to me."

"That is an e