The love of his green Picardy
manor drew him back with gentle hands. He had now returned like a child to
his playthings, and the chief thoughts in his head were his gardens and
fishponds, the spinneys he had planted and the new German dogs he had got
for boar-hunting in the forest. He looked forward to days of busy idleness
in his modest kingdom.
But first he must see his kinsman the Admiral about certain affairs of the
New World which lay near to that great man's heart. Coligny was his
godfather, from whom he was named; he was also his kinsman, for the
Admiral's wife, Charlotte de Laval, was a cousin once removed. So to
Chatillon Gaspard journeyed, and thence to Paris, whither the Huguenot
leader had gone for the marriage fetes of the King of Navarre. Reaching the
city on the Friday evening, he was met by ill news. That morning the
Admiral's life had been attempted on his way back from watching the King at
tennis. Happily the wounds were slight, a broken right forefinger and a
bullet through the left forearm, but the outrage had taken away men's
breath.
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