O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight,
Cold, fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself?
I love myself!
SHAKESPEARE.
Hardly was the Cardinal in his tent before he dropped, armed and cuirassed, into a great armchair; and there, holding his handkerchief to his mouth with a fixed gaze, he remained in this attitude, letting his two dark confidants wonder whether contemplation or annihilation maintained him in it. He was deadly pale, and a cold sweat streamed upon his brow. In wiping it with a sudden movement, he threw behind him his red cap, the only ecclesiastical sign which remained upon him, and again rested with his mouth upon his hands. The Capuchin on one side, and the sombre magistrate on the other, considered him in silence, and seemed, with their brown and black costumes like the priest and the notary of a dying man.
The friar, drawing from the depth of his chest a voice that seemed better suited to repeat the service of the dead than to administer consolation, spoke first:
“If Monseigneur will recall my counsels given at Narbonne, he will confess that I had a just presentiment of the troubles which this young man would one day cause him.”
The magistrate continued:
“I have learned from the old deaf abbe who dined at the house of the Marechale d’Effiat, and who heard all, that this young Cinq-Mars exhibited more energy than one would have imagined, and that he attempted to rescue the Marechal de Bassompierre. I have still by me the detailed report of the deaf man, who played his part very well. His Eminence the Cardinal must be sufficiently convinced by it.”
“I have told Monseigneur,” resumed Joseph—for these two ferocious Seyds alternated their discourse like the shepherds of Virgil—“I have told him that it would be well to get rid of this young D’Effiat, and that I would charge myself with the business, if such were his good pleasure. It would be easy to destroy him in the opinion of the King.”
“It would be safer to make him die of his wound,” answered Laubardemont; “if his Eminence would have the goodness to command me, I know intimately the assistant-physician, who cured me of a blow on the forehead, and is now attending to him. He is a prudent man, entirely devoted to Monseigneur the Cardinal-Duke, and whose affairs have been somewhat embarrassed by gambling.”
“I believe,” replied Joseph, with an air of modesty, mingled with a touch of bitterness, “that if his Excellency proposed to employ any one in this useful project, it should be his accustomed negotiator, who has had some success in the past.”
“I fancy that I could enumerate some signal instances,” answered Laubardemont, “and very recent ones, of which the difficulty was great.”