Well, Master Leonard, take the hundred, and do as you deused well please. Come to your coach, countess."
These words were addressed to Countess Bearn, who limped out of the inner room.
"Four of you footmen take the lady between you," ordered Jean,
"and carry her gently down the stairs. If she utters a single groan, I will have you flogged."
Leonard disappeared during this delicate task.
"Where can he have slipped away?" the young countess wanted to know.
"Where? By some rat hole or bang through the wall!" said the viscount. "As the spirits cut away. Have a care, my dear, lest your headdress becomes a wasp nest, your dress a cobweb, and your carriage a pumpkin drawn by a pair of mice, on arriving at Versailles."
Enunciating this dreadful threat, Viscount Jean got into the carriage, in which was already placed Countess Bearn and the happy woman to whom she was to stand sponsor.