"Sire."

Tavannes, we know, had been slow to obey the summons. Emerging from the
crowd, he found that the King, with Retz and Rambouillet, his Marshal des
Logis, had retired to the farther end of the Chamber; apparently Charles
had forgotten that he had called. His head a little bent--he was tall
and had a natural stoop--the King seemed to be listening to a low but
continuous murmur of voices which proceeded from the door of his closet.
One voice frequently raised was beyond doubt a woman's; a foreign accent,
smooth and silky, marked another; a third, that from time to time broke
in, wilful and impetuous, was the voice of Monsieur, the King's brother,
Catherine de Medicis' favourite son. Tavannes, waiting respectfully two
paces behind the King, could catch little that was said; but Charles,
something more, it seemed, for on a sudden he laughed, a violent,
mirthless laugh. And he clapped Rambouillet on the shoulder.

"There!" he said, with one of his horrible oaths, "'tis settled! 'Tis
settled! Go, man, and take your orders! And you, M. de Retz," he
continued, in a tone of savage mockery, "go, my lord, and give them!"

"I, sire?" the Italian Marshal answered, in accents of deprecation. There
were times when the young King would show his impatience of the Italian
ring, the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with whom his
mother surrounded him.

"Yes, you!" Charles answered. "You and my lady mother! And in God's
name answer for it at the day!" he continued vehemently. "You will have
it! You will not let me rest till you have it! Then have it, only see
to it, it be done thoroughly! There shall not be one left to cast it in