The Kings Esquires

The King's Esquires, by George
Manville Fenn

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Title: The King's Esquires The Jewel of France
Author: George Manville Fenn
Illustrator: Ogle
Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23128]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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KING'S ESQUIRES ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The King's Esquires
or, The Jewel of France

by George Manville Fenn.
CHAPTER ONE.
HOW YOUNG DENIS KEPT GUARD.
His Most Christian Majesty King Francis the First had a great
preference for his Palace of Fontainebleau among the many places of
residence from which he could choose, and it is interesting to glance
into that magnificent palace on a certain afternoon in the year 151--. In
a special apartment, from which direct access could be obtained to the
guard chamber, where a detachment of the favourite musketeers of the
King of France was on duty, and which also communicated with the
monarch's private apartments, a youth, nearly a man but not quite was
impatiently striding up and down. He stopped every now and then to
glance out of the low window, from which a view could be obtained
over the great Forest of Fontainebleau, where Philip Augustus in the
old days, centuries before, loved to go hunting. It seemed as though to
the young man there was a chafing disquietude in the silence, the
inaction, of the afternoon, when the inmates of the palace, like the
inhabitants of the tiny little white town, retired to rest for a time in
order to be ready for the evening, when life began to be lived once
more.
It was a very handsome chamber in which the young man was
evidencing a species of disquietude, as of awaiting the coming of
somebody, or a summons. As he stopped once in his feverish pacing up
and down, a massive clock was heard to strike three. Rich mats lay on
the polished floor, and the salon was so lofty that high-up it seemed
almost grey dusk by contrast with the bars of sunshine which came
through the window.
From outside there came the challenging clarion note of a trumpet.
"Changing guard," he muttered, "already!" And then he fell to thinking
of other things, for there was beneath the thud of horses' feet, the
baying of a dog and a loud shout.

He turned away from the window at last and tapped the dark arras with
which the walls were draped.
He was a tall, dark-eyed, well-made lad, looking handsome enough in
his rich velvet doublet, evidently one who spent a large part of his time
in the open air, in the chase, or perhaps in sterner work still.
"How much danger?" he murmured, and he went to one side of the
room, raising the heavy folds of a curtain which concealed a door, and
listening intently a minute, before dropping the drapery and then
impatiently springing on to a chair. The chair stood before a long,
narrow, slit-like window, and from it likewise there was little to be seen
but forest, all deep green and silent, and a strip of blue sky. He sprang
down again with a sigh, crossed to the other side of the chamber, lifted
the curtain again, opened a door, and looked out, before closing the
door, dropping the curtain, and resuming his restless walk, as if saying,
"What shall I do with myself?" Somehow the answer seemed to come
to that question, for he suddenly clapped his hand to its side, drew a
long, thin, triangular-bladed sword from its sheath, and admiringly and
caressingly examined the beautiful chased and engraved open-work
steel hilt and guard, giving it a rub here and there with his dark velvet
sleeve. Then he crossed to the great open carved mantelpiece, took hold
of the point of the sword, passing the blade over so that the hilt rested
beyond his right shoulder; and, using the keen point as a graver, he
marked-out, breast high upon one of the supporters of the
chimney-piece, which happened to be a massive half-nude figure, the
shape of a heart--the figure being about four inches in diameter.
Apparently satisfied with his work, he drew back a few feet, turned up
his right sleeve, and grasping his rapier by the handle, made the thin
blade whistle as he waved it through the air and dropped gracefully at
once into position, as if prepared to assault or receive an enemy, the
enemy being