“What!  No letters?” he cried, a hand on either arm of the chair.

The Magistrates stared, one and all.  “No letters?” they muttered.

And “No letters?” the Provost chimed in more faintly.

Count Hannibal looked smiling round the Council table.  He alone was unmoved.

“No,” he said.  “I bear none.”

M. de Montsoreau, who, travel-stained and in his corselet, had the second place of honour at the foot of the table, frowned.

“But, M. le Comte,” he said, “my instructions from Monsieur were to proceed to carry out his Majesty’s will in co-operation with you, who, I understood, would bring letters de par le Roi.”

“I had letters,” Count Hannibal answered negligently.  “But on the way I mislaid them.”

“Mislaid them?” Montsoreau cried, unable to believe his ears; while the smaller dignitaries of the city, the magistrates and churchmen who sat on either side of the table, gaped open-mouthed.  It was incredible!  It was unbelievable!  Mislay the King’s letters!  Who had ever heard of such a thing?

“Yes, I mislaid them.  Lost them, if you like it better.”

“But you jest!” the Lieutenant-Governor retorted, moving uneasily in his chair.  He was a man more highly named for address than courage; and, like most men skilled in finesse, he was prone to suspect a trap.  “You jest, surely, Monsieur!  Men do not lose his Majesty’s letters, by the way.”

“When they contain his Majesty’s will, no,” Tavannes answered, with a peculiar smile.

“You imply, then?”

Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders, but had not answered when Bigot entered and handed him his sweetmeat box; he paused to open it and select a prune.  He was long in selecting; but no change of countenance led any of those at the table to suspect that inside the lid of the box was a message—­a scrap of paper informing him that Montsoreau had left fifty spears in the suburb without the Saumur gate, besides those whom he had brought openly into the town.  Tavannes read the note slowly while he seemed to be choosing his fruit.  And then—­

“Imply?” he answered.  “I imply nothing, M. de Montsoreau.”

“But—­”

“But that sometimes his Majesty finds it prudent to give orders which he does not mean to be carried out.  There are things which start up before the eye,” Tavannes continued, negligently tapping the box on the table, “and there are things which do not; sometimes the latter are the more important.  You, better than I, M. de Montsoreau, know that the King in the Gallery at the Louvre is one, and in his closet is another.”

“Yes.”

“And that being so—­”

“You do not mean to carry the letters into effect?”

“Had I the letters, certainly, my friend.  I should be bound by them.  But I took good care to lose them,” Tavannes added naively.  “I am no fool.”