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So these two abode together at Montbrison for a long time, and in the purlieus of that place hunted and hawked, and made sonnets once in a while, and read aloud from old romances some five days out of the seven. The verses of Riczi were in the year of grace 1410 made public, and not without acclamation; and thereafter the stripling Comte de Charolais, future heir to all Burgundy and a zealous patron of rhyme, was much at Montbrison, and there conceived for Antoine Riczi such admiration as was possible to a very young man only.

In the year of grace 1412 the Vicomte, being then bedridden, died without any disease and of no malady save the inherencies of his age. “I entreat of you, my nephew,” he said at last, “that always you use as touchstone the brave deed you did at Eltham. It is necessary a man serve his lady according to her commandments, but you have performed the most absurd and the cruelest task which any woman ever imposed upon her servitor. I laugh at you, and I envy you.” Thus he died, about Martinmas.

Now was Antoine Riczi a powerful baron, and got no comfort of his lordship, since in his meditations the King of Darkness, that old incendiary, had added a daily fuel until the ancient sorrow quickened into vaulting flames of wrath and of disgust.

“What now avail my riches?” said the Vicomte. “Nay, how much wealthier was I when I was loved, and was myself an eager lover! I relish no other pleasures than those of love. Love’s sot am I, drunk with a deadly wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst. As vapor are all my chattels and my acres, and the more my dominion and my power increase, the more rancorously does my heart sustain its misery, being robbed of that fair merchandise which is the King of England’s. To hate her is scant comfort and to despise her none at all, since it follows that I who am unable to forget the wanton am even more to be despised than she. I will go into England and execute what mischief I may against her.”

The new Vicomte de Montbrison set forth for Paris, first to do homage for his fief, and secondly to be accredited for some plausible mission into England. But in Paris he got disquieting news. Jehane’s husband was dead, and her stepson Henry, the fifth monarch of that name to reign in Britain, had invaded France to support preposterous claims which the man advanced to the very crown of that latter kingdom; and as the earth is altered by the advent of winter was the appearance of France transformed by his coming, and everywhere the nobles were stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the huddled cities were fortified, and on either hand arose intrenchments.

Thus through this sudden turn was the new Vicomte, the dreamer and the recluse, caught up by the career of events, as a straw is by a torrent, when the French lords marched with their vassals to Harfleur, where they were soundly drubbed by the King of England; as afterward at Agincourt.

But in the year of grace 1417 there was a breathing space for discredited France, and presently the Vicomte de Montbrison was sent into England, as ambassador. He got in London a fruitless audience of King Henry, whose demands were such as rendered a renewal of the war inevitable; and afterward, in the month of April, about the day of Palm Sunday, and within her dower-palace of Havering-Bower, an interview with Queen Jehane.

Nicolas omits, and unaccountably, to mention that during the French wars she had ruled England as Regent, and with marvellous capacity–although this fact, as you will see more lately, is the pivot of his chronicle.

A solitary page ushered the Vicomte whither she sat alone, by prearrangement, in a chamber with painted walls, profusely lighted by the sun, and making pretence to weave a tapestry. When the page had gone she rose and cast aside the shuttle, and then with a glad and wordless cry stumbled toward the Vicomte. “Madame and Queen–!” he coldly said.