great a degree intrusted to his
conduct and courage. He felt no doubt in his own mind, that he should be her
successful guide through the hazards of her pilgrimage. Youth seldom thinks of
dangers, and bred up free, and fearless, and self-confiding, Quentin, in
particular, only thought of them to defy them. He longed to be exempted from the
restraint of the Royal presence, that he might indulge the secret glee with
which such unexpected tidings filled him, and which prompted him to bursts of
delight which would have been totally unfitting for that society.
    But Louis had not yet done with him. That cautious Monarch had to consult a
counsellor of a different stamp from Oliver le Diable, and who was supposed to
derive his skill from the superior and astral intelligences, as men, judging
from their fruits, were apt to think the counsels of Oliver sprung from the
Devil himself.
    Louis therefore led the way, followed by the impatient Quentin, to a
separate tower of the Castle of Plessis, in which was installed, in no small
ease and splendour, the celebrated astrologer, poet, and philosopher, Galeotti
Marti, or Martius, or Martivalle, a native of Narni, in Italy, the author of the
famous Treatise, De Vulgo Incognitis,32 and the subject of his age's admiration,
and of the panegyrics of Paulus Jovius. He had long flourished at the court of
the celebrated Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary,33 from whom he was in some
measure decoyed by Louis, who grudged the Hungarian Monarch the society and the
counsels of a sage, accounted so skilful in reading the decrees of Heaven.
    Martivalle was none of those ascetic, withered, pale professors of mystic
learning of those days, who bleared their eyes over the midnight furnace, and
macerated their bodies by outwatching the polar bear. He indulged in all courtly
pleasures, and, until he grew corpulent, had excelled in all martial sports and
gymnastic exercises, as well as in the use of arms; insomuch, that Janus
Pannonius has left a Latin epigram, upon a wrestling match betwixt Galeotti and
a renowned champion of that art, in the presence of the Hungarian King and
Court, in which the Astrologer was completely victorious.
    The apartments of this courtly and martial sage were far more splendidly
furnished than any which Quentin had yet seen in the royal palace; and the
carving and ornamented woodwork of his library, as well as the magnificence
displayed in the tapestries, showed the elegant taste of the learned Italian.
Out of his study one door opened to his sleeping-apartment, another led to