ld go on
till midnight, and perhaps till to-morrow morning."

This letter, being intercepted, was sent with great glee by Henry IV.,
not to the royal hands for which it was destined, but to the Duke of
Mayenne. Great was the wrath of that injured personage as he read such
libellous truths. He forthwith fulminated a scathing reply, addressed to
Philip II., in which he denounced the Duke of Feria as "a dirty
ignoramus, an impudent coward, an impostor, and a blind thief;" adding,
after many other unsavoury epithets, "but I will do him an honour which
he has not merited, proving him a liar with my sword; and I humbly pray
your Majesty to grant me this favour and to pardon my just grief, which
causes me to depart from the respect due to your Majesty, when I speak of
this impostor who has thus wickedly torn my reputation."

His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments in defence
of that tattered reputation. The defiance to mortal combat went for
nothing; and, in the course of the next year, the injured Mayenne turned
his back on Philip and his Spaniards, and concluded his bargain with the
Prince of Bearne. He obtained good terms: the government of Burgundy,
payment of his debts, and a hundred and twenty thousand crowns in hard
cash. It is not on record that the man of his word, of credit, and of
truth, ever restored a penny of the vast sums which he had received from
Philip to carry on the business of the League.

Subsequently the duke came one very hot summer's-day to Monceaux to thank
the king, as he expressed it, for "delivering him from Spanish arrogance
and Italian wiles;" and having got with much difficulty upon his knees,
was allowed to kiss the royal hand. Henry then insisted upon walking
about with him through the park at a prodigious rate, to show him all the
improvements, while the duke panted, groaned, and perspired in his vain
efforts to keep pace with his new sovereign.

"If I keep this fat fellow walking about in the sun much longer,"
whispered the king to De Bethune, who was third in the party, "I shall be
sufficiently avenged for all the mischief he has done us."

At last, when the duke was forced to admit himself to be on the point of
expiring with fatigue, he was dismissed to the palace with orders to
solace himself with a couple of bottles of excellent wine of Arbois,
expressly provided for him by the king's direction. And this was all the
punishment ever inflicted by the good-humoure