It was the reign of the Italians just then, a doubly refined,
somewhat morbid, somewhat ash-coloured, Italy in France, more Italian
still. Men of Italian birth, "to the great suspicion of simple
people," swarmed in Paris, already "flightier, less constant, than
the girouettes on its steeples," and it was love for Italian fashions
that had brought king and courtiers here to-day, with great eclat, as
they said, frizzed and starched, in the beautiful, minutely
considered dress of the moment, pressing the university into a
perhaps not unmerited background; for the promised speaker, about
whom tongues had been busy, not only in the Latin quarter, had come
from Italy. In an age in which all things about which Parisians much
cared must be Italian there might be a hearing for Italian
philosophy. Courtiers at least would understand Italian, and this
speaker was rumoured to possess in perfection all the curious arts of
his native language. And of all the kingly qualities of Henry's
youth, the single one that had held by him was that gift of
eloquence, which he was able also to value in others--inherited
perhaps; for in all the contemporary and subsequent historic gossip
about his mother, the two things certain are, that the hands credited
with so much mysterious ill-doing were fine ones, and that she was an
admirable speaker.
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