“How should I know where the most beautiful and active of the Frondists was at midnight? for I presume it was when you left me that you went to visit her.”
“At the Hotel de Ville, my dear fellow.”
“What! at the Hotel de Ville? Has she, then, been appointed provost of merchants?”
“No; but she has become queen of Paris, ad interim, and since she could not venture at once to establish herself in the Palais Royal or the Tuileries, she is installed at the Hotel de Ville, where she is on the point of giving an heir or an heiress to that dear duke.”
“You didn’t tell me of that, Aramis.”
“Really? It was my forgetfulness then; pardon me.”
“Now,” asked Athos, “what are we to do with ourselves till evening? Here we are without occupation, it seems to me.”
“You forget, my friend, that we have work cut out for us in the direction of Charenton; I hope to see Monsieur de Chatillon, whom I’ve hated for a long time, there.”
“Why have you hated him?”
“Because he is the brother of Coligny.”