Yet such he was not: nay, he was the opposite of this.

Never did Marshal of France make more careful dispositions for a battle--albeit once in it he bore himself like any captain of horse--nor ever did Du Mornay himself sit down to a conference with a more accurate knowledge of affairs.

His prodigious wit and the affability of his manners, while they endeared him to his servants, again and again blinded his adversaries; who, thinking that so much brilliance could arise only from a shallow nature, found when it was too late that they had been outwitted by him whom they contemptuously styled the Prince of Bearn, a man a hundredfold more astute than themselves, and master alike of pen and sword.
Much of this, which all the world now knows, I learned afterwards.

At the moment I could think of little save the king's kindness; to which he added by insisting that I should sit on the bed while we talked.

'You wonder, M.de Marsac,' he said, 'what brings me here, and why I have come to you instead of sending for you?
Still more, perhaps, why I have come to you at night and with such precautions?
I will tell you.