“I! I!”
“Break in the doors, Monsieur Crillon!” said, from outside, a voice which made the hair of all the monks, real and pretended, stand on end.
“Yes, sire,” replied Crillon, giving a tremendous blow with a hatchet on the door.
“What do you want?” said the prior, going to the window.
“Ah! it is you, M. Foulon,” replied the same voice, “I want my jester, who is in one of your cells. I want Chicot, I am ennuyé at the Louvre.”
“And I have been much amused, my son,” said Chicot, throwing off his hood, and pushing his way through the crowd of monks, who recoiled, with a cry of terror.
At this moment the Duc de Guise, advancing to a lamp, read the signature obtained with so much labor. It was “Chicot I.”
“Chicot!” cried he; “thousand devils!”
“Let us fly!” said the cardinal, “we are lost.”
“Ah!” cried Chicot, turning to Gorenflot, who was nearly fainting, and he began to strike him with the cord he had round his waist.