curtsey to the canon, he signed to his servants and left the church
without a word to the others who had accompanied him. His silence had
something savage and sullen about it. Impatient to reach his home and
preoccupied in searching for means to discover the truth, he took his
way through the tortuous streets which at that time separated the
cathedral from the Chancellerie, a fine building recently erected by
the Chancellor Juvenal des Ursins, on the site of an old fortification
given by Charles VII. to that faithful servant as a reward for his
glorious labors.

The count reached at last the rue du Murier, in which his dwelling,
called the hotel de Poitiers, was situated. When his escort of
servants had entered the courtyard and the heavy gates were closed, a
deep silence fell on the narrow street, where other great seigneurs
had their houses, for this new quarter of the town was near to
Plessis, the usual residence of the king, to whom the courtiers, if
sent for, could go in a moment. The last house in this street was also
the last in the town. It belonged to Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst, an
old Brabantian merchant, to whom King Louis XI. gave his utmost
confidence in those financial transactions which his crafty policy
induced him to undertake outside of his own kingdom.

Observing the outline of the houses occupied respectively by Maitre
Cornelius and by the Comte de Poitiers, it was easy to believe that
the same architect had built them both and destined them for the use
of tyrants. Each was sinister in aspect, resembling a small fortress,
and both could be well defended against an angry populace. Their
corners were upheld by towers like those which lovers of antiquities
remark in towns where the hammer of the iconoclast has not yet
prevailed. The bays, which had little depth, gave a great power of