A drive of ten minutes brought us to the suburb where the café stood, and the throng of carriages before the door told of the crowd within. A perfect babel greeted us as we entered, for it had become the fashion for each person to do his best to out-talk his neighbors. We found with some difficulty an unoccupied table, and Richelieu motioned me to a seat while he took the one opposite.
“There is no coffee made in Paris which compares with that served here,” he remarked, and as he summoned a waiter I looked about me. The room was large, and was rendered even larger in appearance by the numerous richly-carved mirrors which embellished the walls. Through an open doorway at the back came the click of dice and much loud laughter. Gayly attired parties were continually entering and leaving the private cabinets, and trills of feminine laughter mingled with the harsher voices of the men.
“Ah, de Rey,” cried Richelieu at that moment to a gentleman sitting at the next table, “Mlle. de Launay was telling us a clever story at your expense last night.”
“And what was it, may I ask?” questioned de Rey, a tall, black-moustachioed man, whom I thought ungainly.
“She accuses you of fickleness in your love-affairs,” replied the duke, and he related the geometrical sally.
“What would you have, monsieur?” cried de Rey, as the story was finished, laughing as heartily as any one. “A man never knows to-day whom he will meet to-morrow, and not knowing that, how can he be certain whom he will love?”
While he was speaking three men had entered and taken seats at a neighboring table. They commenced conversing in voices which seemed to me unnecessarily loud, and I could not avoid overhearing them.
“Have you heard,” one of them asked, “of the disposition the regent is to make of his daughter, Mlle. de Valois?”
I glanced at Richelieu and saw that he also had heard. His face was white with anger, and I saw he knew the men and did not doubt that they had come there purposely to insult him.
“Proposals for her hand have been received from the King of Sardinia,” continued the speaker, “and the regent is only too glad to get rid of the fair Charlotte. She seems destined to become even more troublesome than Madame du Berri,” and the speaker laughed, with an insolent note in his voice, and glanced meaningly in our direction. A sudden stillness had fallen upon the crowd.