as learned by this time that there is more
to be gotten by oppressing his feudatories, and pillaging his allies,
than fighting with the Turks for the Holy Sepulchre."

"They might choose the Archduke of Austria," said De Vaux.

"What! because he is big and burly like thyself, Thomas--nearly as
thick-headed, but without thy indifference to danger and carelessness
of offence? I tell thee that Austria has in all that mass of flesh no
bolder animation than is afforded by the peevishness of a wasp and the
courage of a wren. Out upon him! He a leader of chivalry to deeds
of glory! Give him a flagon of Rhenish to drink with his besmirched
baaren-hauters and lance-knechts."

"There is the Grand Master of the Templars," continued the baron, not
sorry to keep his master's attention engaged on other topics than his
own illness, though at the expense of the characters of prince and
potentate. "There is the Grand Master of the Templars," he continued,
"undaunted, skilful, brave in battle, and sage in council, having no
separate kingdoms of his own to divert his exertions from the recovery
of the Holy Land--what thinks your Majesty of the Master as a general
leader of the Christian host?"

"Ha, Beau-Seant?" answered the King. "Oh, no exception can be taken to
Brother Giles Amaury; he understands the ordering of a battle, and the
fighting in front when it begins. But, Sir Thomas, were it fair to take
the Holy Land from the heathen Saladin, so full of all the virtues which
may distinguish unchristened man, and give it to Giles Amaury, a worse
pagan than himself, an idolater, a devil-worshipper, a necromancer, who
practises crimes the most dark and unnatural in the vaults and secret
places of abomination and darkness?"

"The Grand Master of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem is not
tainted by fame, either with heresy or magic," said Thomas de Vaux.

"But is he not a sordid miser?" said Richard hastily; "has he not been
suspected--ay, more than suspected--of selling to the infidels those
advantages which they would never have won by fair force? Tush, man,
better give the army to be made merchandise of by Venetian skippers and
Lombardy pedlars, than trust it to the Grand Master of St. John."

"Well, then, I will venture but another guess," said the Baron de Vaux.
"What say you to the gallant Marquis of Montserrat, so wise, so elegant,
such a good man-at-arms?"

"Wise?--cunning, you would say," replied Richard; "elegant in a