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replied: `I think that Napoleon Orsini and Albertini de Prato, and perhaps even Guillaume de Longis, who was Chancellor to the King of Naples before me, might be fairly easily detached. Avoiding schism is worth the price.'
    Poitiers thought: `He has used the money we gave him to acquire three of the Italian votes. It's clever of him.'
    As for Caetani, though he continued to play an implacable game, he was not in so strong, a position since his practice of sorcery and his attempt to cast a spell on the King of France and the Count of Poitiers himself had been discovered. The ex-Templar Everard, a half-wit, whom Caetani had used for his devilish work, had talked rather too much before giving himself up to the King's men.
    `I am holding that matter in reserve,' said the Count of Poitiers. `The smell of the faggots might, at the right moment, make Monseigneur Caetani a little more pliant.'
    At the thought of seeing another cardinal grilled, a very slight and furtive smile passed over the aged prelate's thin lips.
    `It seems that Francesco Caetani,' he went on, `has quite abandoned God's affairs to devote himself entirely to Satan's. Do you think that, having failed with sorcery, he managed to strike at the King, your brother, with poison?'
    The Count of Poitiers shrugged his shoulders.
    `Whenever a king dies, it's asserted that he was poisoned,' he said. `It was said of my ancestor, Louis VIII; it was said of my father, whom God keep. My brother's health was poor enough. Still, one must take the possibility into account'
    "Finally' Dueze went on, `there is the third party, which is called Provencal because of the most turbulent among us, Cardinal de Mandagout'
    This last party numbered only six cardinals of diverse origin; southerners, such as the brothers Berenger Fredol, were allied in it with Normans and with one member from Quercy, Dueze himself.
    The gold lavished on them by Philippe of Poitiers had made them more receptive to the arguments of French policy.
    `We are the smallest, we are the weakest,' said Dueze, `but our votes are decisive in any majority. And since the Gascons and the Italians each refuse to elect a pope from the other party, then, Monseigneur...'
    `They'll have to take a pope from your party, won't they?'
    `I believe so, I firmly believe so. I've said so ever since Clement died. No one listened to me; doubtless people thought I was preaching on my own behalf, for indeed my name had been mentioned without my wishing it. But the Court of France has never placed much confidence in me.'
    `It was because you were rather too openly supported by the Court of Naples, Monseigneur.'
    `And had I not been supported by someone, Monseigneur, who would have paid any heed to me at all? Believe me, I have no other ambition than to see a little order restored to the affairs of Christendom which are in a bad way; it will be a heavy task for the next successor to Saint Peter.'
    The Count of Poitiers clasped his long hands together before his face and thought for a few seconds.
    `Do you think, Monseigneur,' he asked, `that the Italians would agree to the Holy See remaining in Avignon in return for the satisfaction of not having a Gascon pope, and that the Gascons, in return for the certainty of Avignon, would agree to renounce their own candidate and rally to your third party?'
    By which he in fact meant: `If you, Monseigneur Dueze; became Pope with my support, would you formally agree to preserving the present residence of the Papacy?'
    Dueze perfectly understood.
    `It would, Monseigneur,' he replied, `be the wise solution.'
    `I am grateful for your valuable advice,' said Philippe of Poitiers, rising to his feet to put an end to the audience.
    He showed the Cardinal out.
    When two men, who to all seeming are utterly diverse in age, appearance, experience and position, recognize each other as of similar quality and believe that mutual collaboration and friendship are possible between them, it is due more to the mysterious