“Come, madcap, tell me your history, or I will fill you with powder and blow you up like a mine; take care, for I have already played that trick to others besides you, in the old wars of the Huguenots. Come, sing.”
The young woman, looking at him gravely, made no reply, but lowered her veil.
“You don’t manage her well,” said Grand-Ferre, with a drunken laugh; “you will make her cry. You don’t know the fine language of the court; let me speak to her.” And, touching her on the chin, “My little heart,” he said, “if you will please, my sweet, to resume the little story you told just now to these gentlemen, I will pray you to travel with me upon the river Du Tendre, as the great ladies of Paris say, and to take a glass of brandy with your faithful chevalier, who met you formerly at Loudun, when you played a comedy in order to burn a poor devil.”
The young woman crossed her arms, and, looking around her with an imperious air, cried:
“Withdraw, in the name of the God of armies; withdraw, impious men! There is nothing in common between us. I do not understand your tongue, nor you mine. Go, sell your blood to the princes of the earth at so many oboles a day, and leave me to accomplish my mission! Conduct me to the Cardinal.”
A coarse laugh interrupted her.
“Do you think,” said a carabineer of Maurevert, “that his Eminence the Generalissimo will receive you with your feet naked? Go and wash them.”
“The Lord has said, ‘Jerusalem, lift thy robe, and pass the rivers of water,’” she answered, her arms still crossed. “Let me be conducted to the Cardinal.”
Richelieu cried in a loud voice, “Bring the woman to me, and let her alone!”
All were silent; they conducted her to the minister.