"Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said
at this interview's conclusion. The tale tells that the Vicomte
returned to France and within this realm assembled all such lords as
the abuses of the Queen-Regent Isabeau had more notoriously
dissatisfied.
The Vicomte had upon occasion an invaluable power of speech; and now,
so great was the devotion of love's dupe, so heartily, so hastily, did
he design to remove the discomforts of Queen Jehane, that now his
eloquence was twin to Belial's insidious talking when that fiend
tempts us to some proud iniquity.
Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as did the
Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field. Next, as luck would have it,
Jehan Sans-Peur was slain at Montereau; and a little later the new
Duke of Burgundy, who loved the Vicomte as he loved no other man, had
shifted his coat, forsaking France. These treacheries brought down the
wavering scales of warfare, suddenly, with an aweful clangor; and now
in France clean-hearted persons spoke of the Vicomte de Montbrison as
they would speak of Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every market-place
was King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm.
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