“‘Tis nothing, Joseph; I sometimes yield to these fits of depression; but they do not last long, and I leave them stronger than before. As for my health, I know my condition perfectly; but that is not the business in hand. What have you done at Paris? I am glad to know the King has arrived in Bearn, as I wished; we shall be able to keep a closer watch upon him. How did you induce him to come away?”
“A battle at Perpignan.”
“That is not bad. Well, we can arrange it for him; that occupation will do as well as another just now. But the young Queen, what says she?”
“She is still furious against you; her correspondence discovered, the questioning to which you had subjected her—”
“Bah! a madrigal and a momentary submission on my part will make her forget that I have separated her from her house of Austria and from the country of her Buckingham. But how does she occupy herself?”
“In machinations with Monsieur. But as we have his entire confidence, here are the daily accounts of their interviews.”
“I shall not trouble myself to read them; while the Duc de Bouillon remains in Italy I have nothing to fear in that quarter. She may have as many petty plots with Gaston in the chimney-corner as she pleases; he never got beyond his excellent intentions, forsooth! He carries nothing into effect but his withdrawal from the kingdom. He has had his third dismissal; I will manage a fourth for him whenever he pleases; he is not worth the pistol-shot you had the Comte de Soissons settled with, and yet the poor Comte had scarce more energy than he.”
And the Cardinal, reseating himself in his chair, began to laugh gayly enough for a statesman.
“I always laugh when I think of their expedition to Amiens. They had me between them, Each had fully five hundred gentlemen with him, armed to the teeth, and all going to despatch me, like Concini; but the great Vitry was not there. They very quietly let me talk for an hour with them about the hunt and the Fete Dieu, and neither of them dared make a sign to their cut-throats. I have since learned from Chavigny that for two long months they had been waiting that happy moment. For myself, indeed, I observed nothing, except that little villain, the Abbe de Gondi,—[Afterward Cardinal de Retz.]—who prowled near me, and seemed to have something hidden under his sleeve; it was he that made me get into the coach.”
“Apropos of the Abbe, my lord, the Queen insists upon making him coadjutor.”