table to share a bottle with me.

"More amusement at the palace," he said to me. "To think that, any one of
these nights, I may be compelled to use force against the person of the
King's brother, and that some day he may be King! I wonder if he will
then bear malice?"

"What is the new trouble at the Louvre?" I asked.

"It is only the old trouble. Monsieur has been muttering again, I
suppose, and this, with the fact that Bussy d'Amboise keeps so quiet
outside of Paris, has led the King to fear that Monsieur has planned to
escape to the country. At least, it has been ordered that every member of
the Duke's household, who does not have to attend at his retiring, must
leave the palace at night; and Messieurs de l'Archant, De Losses, and the
other captains, have received orders from the King that, if Monsieur
attempts to go out after dark, he must be stopped. Suppose it becomes my
duty to stop him? That will be pleasant, will it not? To make it worse, I
am devoted to a certain damsel who is devoted to Queen Marguerite, who is
devoted to Monsieur, her brother. And here I am inviting misfortune,
too, by drinking wine on the first Friday in Lent. I ought to have
followed the example of the King, who has been doing penance all day in
the chapel of the Hotel de Bourbon."

"Let us hope that the King will be rewarded for his penance by the
submission of Monsieur. I, for one, hope that if Monsieur attempts to get
away, he will run across some Scotchman of the Guard who will not scruple
to impede a prince of France. For if he should lead a Huguenot army
against the King, I, as one of the Guards, might be called on to oppose
my fellow-Protestants."