The auditors held their breath.
And they heard the voice say:
“DEAR SISTER: be of good heart. The crisis has passed. I await the morrow with impatience for I am going to take the offensive with all presaging decisive success. All well about the Rouen Parliament, Lord X., and the squibs. To-morrow, after business with the King, I will append a postscript to this letter and despatch by this courier.”
While with his left hand Balsamo seemed to wrest out each word with difficulty, with his right he wrote the lines which Duke Choiseul was writing in Versailles.
“What is the duke doing?”
“He folds up the paper and puts it in a small pocketbook taken from the left side of his coat. He dismisses the courier, saying: ‘Be at one o’clock at the Trianon gateway.’ The courier bows and comes forth.”
“That is so,” said Richelieu: “he is making an appointment for the man to get the answer.”
Balsamo silenced him with a gesture.
“What is the duke doing?”
“He rises, holding the letter he received. He goes to his couch, passes between its edge and the wall, pushes a spring which opens an iron safe in the wall, throws in the letter and shuts the safe.”