Tell them to strike not too gently with the flats of their swords and the butts of their spears." Gilles de Retz listened for some time after the disappearance of his familiar.

Presently the low droning note of popular execration changed into sharper exclamations of hatred, mingled with cries of pain.
Then the marshal smiled, and rubbed his hands lightly one over the other.
"That's my good lads," he said; "hear the rattle of the spear-hilts upon the paving-stones?
They are bringing the butts into close acquaintance with certain very ill-shod feet.

Ah, now they are gone!" The marshal took a long breath and went on, half to himself and half to Sybilla.
"But I own it is all most inconvenient," he said, thoughtfully.

"Here in Paris, in King Charles's country, it does not so greatly matter.
For the affair in Scotland has set me right with the King and in especial with the Dauphin.

By the death of the Douglases I have given back the duchy of Touraine to the kings of France after three generations.