"I had not thought there could be in all the world such--women!" said Claire. "After all, our Scottish way is fairer--and that is foot to foot and blade to blade!"
"Even the Valois dagger in the back is better," said the Princess; "but this Italian woman is cunning, like all her fox-brood of Florentine money-lenders! How shall we foil her? It is useless speaking to my brother. He would only laugh, and bid me get to my sampler till he had found a goodman of my own for me to knit hose for!"
"Let me ask counsel of the Doctor of the Sorbonne who is with me," Claire urged; "he is very wise, and----"
"A Doctor of the Sorbonne!" cried Mistress Catherine--"impossible! Why, have they not cursed my brother, excommunicated him? They have even turned against their own King!"
"Ay, but," said Claire, now eager to do her friend justice, "_my_ Doctor they have excommunicated also, because he withstood them in full Senatus. If he went back to Paris just now, they would hang him in his gown from the windows of his own class-room!"
So in this way Doctor Anatole of the Sorbonne entered into the heretic councils of the Bearnais. Indeed, his was the idea which came like a lightning-flash of illumination upon the councils of Claire and the Princess Catherine.
"What of La Reine Margot?" murmured the Professor, as if he had been speaking to himself; "is she of her husband's enemies?"
"Nay--but," began the Princess, "that would be pouring oil upon fire!"
"Where one fire has burned, there is little fuel for a second," suggested the Professor sententiously.
"It is not the highest wisdom," said the careful Princess, "I fear it would not bring a blessing."
"It is wisdom--if not the highest, my Lady Catherine," said the learned Doctor, "and if the matter succeeds--that, for your Cause, will be blessing enough!"
"Then our Cause is not yours?" Catherine demanded sharply of him. The Professor smiled.
"I am old, or you children think so. I have at least seen the vanity of persecuting any man for the thought that is in his heart. I was bred a Catholic, yet have been persecuted by my brethren for differing from them. But I agree that most honest folk of the realm are of your brother's party--the brave, the wise, the single of eye and heart. There never will be a king in France till the Bearnais reigns."