motto is "BONNE FOI," is it not? And Marsac, if I remember
rightly, is not far from Rennes, on the Vilaine?'

I answered that it was, adding, with a full heart, that it
grieved me to be compelled to receive so great a prince in so
poor a lodging.

'Well, I confess,' Du Mornay struck in, looking carelessly round
him, 'you have a queer taste, M. de Marsac, in the arrangement of
your furniture. You--'

'Mornay!' the king cried sharply.

'Sire?'

'Chut! your elbow is in the candle. Beware of it!'

But I well understood him. If my heart had been full before, it
overflowed now. Poverty is not so shameful as the shifts to
which it drives men. I had been compelled some days before, in
order to make as good a show as possible--since it is the
undoubted duty of a gentleman to hide his nakedness from
impertinent eyes, and especially from the eyes of the canaille,
who are wont to judge from externals--to remove such of my
furniture and equipage as remained to that side of the room,
which was visible from without when the door was open. This left
the farther side of the room vacant and bare. To anyone within
doors the artifice was, of course, apparent, and I am bound to
say that M. de Mornay's words brought the blood to my brow.