he had invented a game of hop, skip, and
jump up stairs and down, which he was wont to play with the soldiers of
the guard, as a solace to the tediousness of confinement. One day he
hopped and skipped up the staircase with a rapidity which excited the
admiration of the companions of his sport, slipped into his room, slammed
and bolted the doors, and when the guard, after in vain waiting a
considerable tine for him to return and resume the game, at last forced
an entrance, they found the bird flown out of window. Rope-ladders,
confederates, fast-galloping post-horses did the rest, and at last the
young duke joined his affectionate uncle in camp, much to that eminent
relative's discomfiture. Philip gave alternately conflicting instructions
to Farnese--sometimes that he should encourage the natural jealousy
between the pair; sometimes that he should cause them to work
harmoniously together for the common good--that common good being the
attainment by the King of Spain of the sovereignty of France.

But it was impossible, as already intimated, for Mayenne to work
harmoniously with his nephew. The Duke of Guise might marry with the
infanta and thus become King of France by the grace of God and Philip. To
such a consummation in the case of his uncle there stood, as we know, an
insuperable obstacle in the shape of the Duchess of Mayenne. Should it
come to this at last, it was certain that the Duke would make any and
every combination to frustrate such a scheme. Meantime he kept his own
counsel, worked amiably with Philip, Parma, and the young duke, and
received money in overflowing measure, and poured into his bosom from
that Spanish monarch whose veterans in the Netherlands were maddened by
starvation into mutiny.

Philip's plans were a series of alternatives. France he regarded as the
property of his family. Of that there could be no doubt at all. He meant
to put the crown upon his own head, unless the difficulties in the way
should prove absolutely insuperable. In that case he claimed France and
all its inhabitants as the property of his daughter. The Salic law was
simply a pleasantry, a bit of foolish pedantry, an absurdity. If Clara
Isabella, as daughter of Isabella of France, as grandchild of Henry II.,
were not manifestly the owner of France--queen-proprietary, as the
Spanish doctors called it--then there was no such thing, so he thought,
as inheritance of castle, farm-house, or hovel--no such thing as property
anywhe