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 crown of that latter kingdom; and as the earth is altered by the advent of winter, so was the appearance of France transformed by King Henry’s coming, and everywhere the nobles were stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the huddled cities were fortified, and on every side arose entrenchments.

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 borne away 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 got, in the month of April, about the day of Palm Sunday, at the Queen’s dower-palace of Havering-Bower, an interview with Queen Jehane.[*]

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

A curled pert page took the Vicomte to where she sat alone, by prearrangement, in a chamber with painted walls, profusely lighted by the sun, and made 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.

His judgment found in her a quite ordinary, frightened woman, aging now, but still very handsome in these black and shimmering gold robes; but all his other faculties found her desirable:  and with a contained hatred he had perceived, as if by the terse illumination of a thunderbolt, that he could never love any woman save the woman whom he most despised.

She said:  “I had forgotten.  I had remembered only you, Antoine, and Navarre, and the clean-eyed Navarrese—­” Now for a little, Jehane paced the gleaming and sun-drenched apartment as a bright leopardess might tread her cage.  Then she wheeled.  “Friend, I think that God Himself has deigned to avenge you.  All misery my reign has been.  First Hotspur, then prim Worcester harried us.  Came Glyndwyr afterward to prick us with his devils’ horns.  Followed the dreary years that linked me to the rotting corpse which God’s leprosy devoured while the poor furtive thing yet moved, and endured its share in the punishment of Manuel’s poisonous blood.  All misery, Antoine!  And now I live beneath a sword.”