by a vestige of suspicion, he added, under his breath, —
"Between now and to-morrow I will not leave her side, and if she succeeds in inventing any method of warning him, she's a sorceress."
"And so," said Nanon, laying her hand upon the duke's shoulder, "I may venture to solicit my friend in my brother's interest?"
"Most assuredly!" rejoined d'Épernon; "as much as you choose. Is it money?"
"Money, indeed!" said Nanon. "He's in no need of money; indeed it was he who gave me the magnificent ring you have noticed, which was his mother's."
"Promotion, then?" said the duke.
"Ah! yes, promotion. We'll make him a colonel, won't we?"
"Peste!/ how fast you go, my love! Colonel! To obtain that rank, he must have rendered his Majesty's cause some service."
"He is ready to render that cause whatever service may be pointed out to him."
"Indeed!" said the duke, looking at Nanon out of the corner of his eye, "I shall have occasion to send some one on a confidential mission to the court."
"To the court!" exclaimed Nanon.
"Yes," replied the old courtier; "but that would separate you."
Nanon saw that she must take some means to destroy this remnant of suspicion.
"Oh! don't be alarmed about that, my dear duke. What matters the separation, so long as there is profit in it? If he's near at hand, I can be of but little use to him – you are jealous; but, at a distance, you will extend your powerful patronage to him. Exile him, ex-patriate him if it's for his good, and don't be concerned about me. So long as I retain my dear duke's affection, have I not more than enough to make me happy?"
"Very well, it's agreed," said the duke; "to-morrow morning I will send for him, and give him his instructions. And now, as you suggest," he continued, casting a much more amiable glance upon the two chairs, the two covers, and the two pillows; "and now, my love, let us sup."
They took their places at the table, smiling amicably at each other; so that Francinette herself, although, in her capacity of confidential maid, she was well used to the duke's peculiarities and her mistress's character, believed that her mistress was perfectly tranquil in her mind, and the duke completely reassured.
VII
The gentleman whom Canolles greeted by the name of Richon, went up to the first floor of the Golden Calf, and was taking supper there with the viscount.
He was the person whose coming the viscount was impatiently awaiting when chance made him a witness of Monsieur d'Épernon's hostile preparations, and made it possible for him to render Baron de Canolles the important service we have described.
He had left Paris a week before, and Bordeaux the same day, and was therefore the bearer of recent news concerning the somewhat disturbed state of affairs, and the disquieting plots which were brewing all the way from Paris to Bordeaux. As he spoke, now of the imprisonment of the princes, which was the sensation of the day, again of the Parliament of Bordeaux, which was the ruling power of the neighborhood, and still again of Monsieur de Mazarin, who was the king of the moment, the young man silently watched his strong, bronzed face, his piercing, confident eye, his sharp, white teeth, which showed beneath his long, black moustache, – details which made Richon the perfect type of the true soldier of fortune.
"And so," said the viscount, after his companion had told what he had to tell, "Madame la Princesse is now at Chantilly?"
As is well known, both Duchesses de Condé were so called, but the additional title of Dowager was bestowed upon the elder of the two.
"Yes, and they look for you there at the earliest possible moment," said Richon.
"What is her situation?"
"She is practically in exile; her movements as well as her mother-in-law's are watched with the utmost care, for there is a shrewd suspicion at court that they do not mean to confine themselves to petitions to parliament, and that they are concocting something for the benefit of the princes more likely to prove efficacious. Unfortunately, as always, money – Speaking of money, have you received what was due you? That is a question I was strongly urged to ask you."
"I have succeeded with great difficulty in collecting about twenty thousand livres, and I have it with me in gold; that's all."
"All! Peste! viscount, it's easy to see that you are a millionnaire. To talk so contemptuously of such a sum at such a time! Twenty thousand francs! We shall be poorer than Monsieur de Mazarin, but richer than the king."
"Then you think that Madame la Princesse will accept my humble offering, Richon?"
"Most gratefully; it is enough to pay an army."
"Do you think that we shall need it?"
"Need what? an army? Most assuredly; and we are busily at work levying one. Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld has enlisted four hundred gentlemen on the pretext that he wishes them to be present at the obsequies of his father. Monsieur le Duc de Bouillon is about starting for Guyenne with an equal number. Monsieur de Turenne promises to make a descent upon Paris in the hope of surprising Vincennes, and carrying off the princes by a coup de main; he will have thirty thousand men, – his whole army of the North, whom he has seduced from the king's service. Oh! everything is going along well," Richon continued, "never fear; I don't know if we shall perform any great deeds, but at all events we shall make a great noise."
"Did you not fall in with the Duc d'Épernon?" interposed the young man, whose eyes sparkled with joy at this enumeration of forces, which augured well for the triumph of the party to which he was attached.
"The Duc d'Épernon?" repeated Richon, opening his eyes; "where do you suppose I fell in with him, I pray to know? I come from Agen, not from Bordeaux."
"You might have fallen in with him within a few steps of this place," replied the viscount, smiling.
"Ah! yes, of course, the lovely Nanon de Lartigues lives in the neighborhood, does she not?"
"Within two musket-shots of the inn."
"The deuce! that explains the Baron de Canolles' presence at the Golden Calf."
"Do you know him?"
"Whom? the baron? Yes. I might almost say that I am his friend, if Monsieur de Canolles were not of the oldest nobility, while I am only a poor roturier."
"Roturiers like yourself, Richon, are quite as valuable as princes in our present plight. Do you know, by the way, that I saved your friend, Baron de Canolles, from a thrashing, if not from something much worse."
"Yes; he said something of that to me, but I hardly listened to him, I was in such haste to join you. Are you sure that he didn't recognize you?"
"He could hardly recognize a person he had never seen."
"I should have asked if he did not guess who you are."
"Indeed," replied the viscount, "he looked at me very hard."
Richon smiled.
"I can well believe it," he said; "one doesn't meet young gentlemen of your type every
