Page:George Chapman, a critical essay (IA georgechapmancri00swin).pdf/122

preserve the historic relations of his leading characters, that the king by whose intervention Bussy d'Ambois was betrayed to the jealousy of Monsoreau appears not as the treacherous enemy but as the trusty friend and patron of his brother's rebellious favourite; pardons and prefers him to the rank of his own, and adopts him into that station by the surname of his eagle; while instead of the king it is here the duke of Anjou who delivers his refractory minion into the murderous snare set for him by an injured husband. But if I read aright the hinted imputation of Brantôme, it would seem that some years before he put into the hands of Monsoreau the intercepted correspondence of Bussy with his wife the king had already laid an ambush of 'twelve good men' armed with pistols and 'mounted on Spanish horses taken from the stables of a very great personage who had set them on' to attempt the life of his brother's indomitable champion, who was preserved as well by his own presence of mind and discretion as by the good fortune which befell him to find the door