What then ?--you may get such where I got this, in the service of the good King of France, where there is always wealth to be found, if a man has but the heart to seek it at the risk of a little life or so." "I understood," said Quentin, evading a decision to which he felt himself as yet scarcely competent, "that the Duke of Burgundy keeps a more noble state than the King of France, and that there is more honour to be won under his banners--that good blows are struck there, and deeds of arms done; while the most Christian King, they say, gains his victories by his ambassadors' tongues." "You speak like a foolish boy, fair nephew," answered he with the scar; "and yet, I bethink me, when I came hither I was nearly as simple: I could never think of a King but what I supposed him either sitting under the high deas, and feasting amid his high vassals and Paladins, eating blanc mange, with a great gold crown upon his head, or else charging at the head of his troops like Charlemagne in the romaunts, or like Robert Bruce or William Wallace in our own true histories, such as Barbour and the Minstrel.

Hark in thine ear, man--it is all moonshine in the water.
Policy--policy does it all.

But what is policy, you will say?
It is an art this French King of ours has found out, to fight with other men's swords, and to wage his soldiers out of other men's purses.

Ah! it is the wisest prince that ever put purple on his back--and yet he weareth not much of that neither--I see him often go plainer than I would think befitted me to do." [Charlemagne (742 ?-814): King of the Franks and crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800.

His kingdom included Germany and France, the greater part of Italy, and Spain as far as the Ebro.