"In that case tell me quickly."
"Will you have me committed to the Châtelet if I tell you?"
"Instantly."
"Well, my friend, imagine that I was idiot enough to confide to others than yourself the fact that I had seen a lovely girl in the head of the statue of Mars."
"What then?"
"The crack-brained fools! would you believe that they spread the story so that it came to the provost's ears; and as the provost had lost his daughter some days before, he suspected that it was she who had selected that hiding place. He notified D'Orbec and the Duchesse d'Etampes: they came to the Hôtel de Nesle to make a domiciliary visit while Benvenuto Cellini was at Fontainebleau. They carried off Colombe and imprisoned Ascanio."
"Nonsense!"
"It's as I tell you, my dear viscount. And who managed it all? A certain Vicomte de Marmagne."
"But," interposed the viscount, not at all pleased to hear his name upon the student's lips, "you don't tell me why you want to be committed to the Châtelet."
"You don't understand?"