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If you have thought to aid the Dowager of Condillac in this resistance of Her Majesty's mandate, let me enjoin you, as you value your seneschalship as you value your very neck to harbour that thought no longer. "It seems that, after all, I must deal myself with the situation. I must go myself to Condillac.
"Since you take this tone with me, monsieur " "I take with you as with any man the tone that to me seems best. You miserable fool! As sure as you're a rogue this affair shall cost you your position. You have waxed fat and sleek in your seneschalship; this easy life in Dauphiny appears to have been well suited to your health.
"As I have promised, you shall be spared all prosecution, Monsieur de Tressan," he assured the Seneschal at parting. "But you must resign at once the King's Seneschalship of Dauphiny, else will you put me to the necessity of having you deprived of your office and that might entail unpleasant consequences."
Before long, however, Leicester unwillingly agreed to vacate his office on receiving from Henry a sum of money. In September, 1252, he laid down the seneschalship and retired into France. While shabbily treated by the king, he had certainly shown an utter absence of tact or scruple. But the tumults of Gascony raged with more violence than ever now that his strong hand was withdrawn.
But let me do no more than ask a favour, and it is, 'What of my good name, madame? What of my seneschalship? Am I to be gaoled or hanged to pleasure you? Faugh!" she ended, with a toss of her splendid head. "The world is peopled with your kind, and I alas! for a woman's intuitions had held you different from the rest." Her words were to his soul as a sword of fire might have been to his flesh.
But Marius, either from sheer perverseness, or because he did not share her enthusiasm, made answer: "I have faith in Gilles." "Yes," she mocked him, "and you had faith in Berthaud. Oh, if you have faith in Gilles, let him remain; let no more be said." The obstinate boy took her advice, and shifted the subject, speaking to Tressan of some trivial business connected with the Seneschalship.
I pledge you my word that you shall not be called to further account for the lives that have been lost through your treachery and want of loyalty, provided that of your own free will you lay down your Seneschalship of Dauphiny an office which I cannot consent to see you filling hereafter." Tressan stared from the Dowager to Garnache and back to the Dowager.
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