down in the old story-book of the Cento Novelle, "the flower of gentle
speech." There was one tale of King Conrad that the boy never forgot:
how the King, in his youth, had always about him a company of twelve
lads of his own age; how when Conrad did wrong, his governors, instead
of punishing him, beat his twelve companions; and how, on the young
King's asking what the lads were being punished for, the pedagogues
replied:

"For your Majesty's offences."

"And why do you punish my companions instead of me?"

"Because you are our lord and master," he was told.

At this the King fell to thinking, and thereafter, it is said, in pity
for those who must suffer in his stead he set close watch on himself,
lest his sinning should work harm to others. This was the story of King
Conrad; and much as Odo loved the clash of arms and joyous feats of
paladins rescuing fair maids in battle, yet Conrad's seemed to him, even
then, a braver deed than these.

In March of the second year the old Marquess, returning from Turin, was
accompanied, to the surprise of all, by the fantastical figure of an
elderly gentleman in the richest travelling dress, with one of the new
French toupets, a thin wrinkled painted face, and emitting with every
movement a prodigious odour of millefleurs. This visitor, who was
attended by his French barber and two or three liveried servants, the
Marquess introduced as the lord of Valdu, a neighbouring seigneurie of
no great account. Though his lands marched with the Marquess's, it was
years since the Count had visited Donnaz, being one of the King's