The prophecy that he would better his fortune by marriage
weighed little with him; marriage was a matter that appeared to him at
present to be a very remote contingency; at the same time it was pleasant
to him to be told that his wife would be an heiress, because this would
place him above the need of earning his living by his sword, and would
enable him to follow his sovereign, not as one of the train of a powerful
noble, but as a free knight.
CHAPTER IX
A STOUT DEFENCE
The Duke of Burgundy had left Paris upon the day after he had received
Dame Margaret, and as the king had a lucid interval, the Duke of
Aquitaine, his son, was also absent with the army. In Paris there existed
a general sense of uneasiness and alarm. The butchers, feeling that their
doings had excited a strong reaction against them, and that several of the
other guilds, notably that of the carpenters, were combining against them,
determined to strike terror into their opponents by attacking some of
their leaders. Several of these were openly murdered in the streets, and
the houses of others were burnt and sacked. One evening when Guy had
returned at nine o'clock from a supper at Count Charles's lodgings, it
being the first time he had been out after dark since his first adventure,
he had but just gone up to his room, when he heard a loud knocking at the
door below. Going to the front window he looked out of the casement.
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