And, striking him with his rule, he drove him through the crowd, and returned to place himself on another part of the line. After having well reprimanded the thoughtless page, he asked him for the letter which he said he had to give to M. de Cinq-Mars when he should have escaped. Olivier had carried it in his pocket for two months. He gave it him. "It is from one prisoner to another," said he, "for the Chevalier de jars, on leaving the Bastille, sent it me from one of his companions in captivity."
"Ma foi!" said Gondi, "there may be some important secret in it for our friends. I'll open it. You ought to have thought of it before. Ah, bah! it is from old Bassompierre. Let us read it.
MY DEAR CHILD: I learn from the depths of the Bastille, where I still remain, that you are conspiring against the tyrant Richelieu, who does not cease to humiliate our good old nobility and the parliaments, and to sap the foundations of the edifice upon which the State reposes. I hear that the nobles are taxed and condemned by petty judges, contrary to the privileges of their condition, forced to the arriere-ban, despite the ancient customs."
"Ah! the old dotard!" interrupted the page, laughing immoderately.
"Not so foolish as you imagine, only he is a little behindhand for our affair."
"I can not but approve this generous project, and I pray you give me
to wot all your proceedings—"
"Ah! the old language of the last reign!" said Olivier. "He can't say
'Make me acquainted with your proceedings,' as we now say."
"Let me read, for Heaven's sake!" said the Abbe; "a hundred years hence they'll laugh at our phrases." He continued:
"I can counsel you, notwithstanding my great age, in relating to you
what happened to me in 1560."
"Ah, faith! I've not time to waste in reading it all. Let us see the end.