"For an hour and three quarters, watch in hand."
"You governed Paris?"
"With despotic power."
"How did that come about?"
"In the simplest way imaginable. You must know that Monsieur le Coadjuteur, Monsieur de Gondy, the Abbé de Gondy—-"
"Well?"
"Was absolute master of the city. Well, at that precise moment, I was in the service of Monsieur le Duc d'Elbœuf; he is a Lorraine prince, and one need not be ashamed to belong to him. For the time being, Monsieur d'Elbœuf was at enmity with the coadjutor. So I led an uprising in favor of Monsieur d'Elbœuf, in the course of which I captured—"
"Whom? the coadjutor?"
"No; I shouldn't have known what to do with him, and should have been much embarrassed. I captured his mistress, Mademoiselle de Chevreuse."