"
"What! a parricide in addition to the Saint-Bartholomew, count?" cried
the king. "No, no! I will exile her. Once fallen, my mother will no
longer have either servants or partisans."
"Well, then, sire," replied the Comte de Solern, "give me the order to
arrest her at once and take her out of the kingdom; for to-morrow she
will have forced you to change your mind."
"Come to my forge," said the king, "no one can overhear us there;
besides, I don't want my mother to suspect the capture of the
Ruggieri. If she knows I am in my work-shop she'll suppose nothing,
and we can consult about the proper measures for her arrest."
As the king entered a lower room of the palace, which he used for a
workshop, he called his companion's attention to the forge and his
implements with a laugh.
"I don't believe," he said, "among all the kings that France will ever
have, there'll be another to take pleasure in such work as that. But
when I am really king, I'll forge no swords; they shall all go back
into their scabbards."
"Sire," said the Comte de Solern, "the fatigues of tennis and hunting,
your toil at this forge, and--if I may say it--love, are chariots
which the devil is offering you to get the faster to Saint-Denis.
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