"Yes, you!--as if you had called it from the housetops. _Mon ami_, did
ever hear of a bourgeois handling sword as you, or bearing arms _un coq
d'or griffe de sable, en champ d'azur_? Those arms are on your
wine-cups--if they exist still--they are on the hilt of the sword you
lent me."

"_Morbleu_!"

"But that is not all. In the gay, red days, when Lorgnac here and I
had all the world before us, we were of the College of Cambrai. It is
true we entered as you left; but we knew you, and when all Paris was
full of your name Lorgnac and I, and others whom you knew not, aped the
fall of your cloak, the droop of your plume, the tilt of your sword.
Those days are gone, and until last night you, I thought, were gone
with them."

"Monsieur!"

"Listen! There is more yet. I but told the Queen of the arms you
bore. She recognised them at once."

"That is not strange; the Vidame d'Orrain is in Paris!"

"True! But she remembered your history--every detail of it. It was
long ago, and many things have happened, and the Seine there has rolled
much water under its bridges since then, but she had forgotten nothing.
My friend, they who say the Medicis ever forgets are fools--blind in
their folly. And so, for the sake of last night, and a little for the
days that have gone, we will see pretty things yet, God willing! Eh,
De Lorgnac?"

"I for one look forward to the day when a brave man will come to his
own," replied the other, and their kindness touched me to the quick.

I am not one gifted with the power of speech--indeed, I hold that the
greater the tongue the smaller the heart--but I found words to thank
these gallant gentlemen, and De Lorgnac said:

"Monsieur, it is enough thanks to hold us in your esteem, and we will
say no more about it. I have, however, some information that may be
useful. Your brother the Vidame left Paris this evening for the South,
it is said. Thus one danger is at any rate removed from your path."

It was something to know that Simon was gone. I thanked De Lorgnac,
and added:

"Now, messieurs, for my news. I know not if I have come forth from
that chamber"--and I pointed behind me--"a made man or not. This much
I know, I am the bearer of a letter, the delivery of which must not be
delayed, and I must leave Paris with the dawn, or before--horse or no
horse."

"The horses I said were my care," De Lorgnac said. And then turning to
Le Brusquet: "Await me on the steps that lead to