I now added six trusty servants to my retinue, provided horses and arms for the whole party, and my business in Paris being nearly concluded, prepared to return to Sedan without loss of time; when one morning a note was left at my little lodging, desiring my presence at the Palais Cardinal the next evening at four o'clock, and signed "Richelieu."
I instantly sent off my six servants to Meaux, keeping with me Combalet de Carignan, his companion Jacques Mocqueur, Garcias, and Achilles, with the full intention of bidding adieu to Paris the next morning, and putting as many leagues as possible between myself and his eminence of Richelieu, before the hour he had named. Time was when I should have waited his leisure with the palpitating heart of hope, and now I prepared to gallop away from him with somewhat more speed than dignity. The tempora mutantur et nos mutamur goes but a little way to tell the marvels that a month can do.
My plans, however, were disarranged by very unexpected circumstances. On returning to my apartments at the Hôtel de Soissons, I sat down for a moment to write; when, after a gentle tap, the door opened, and in glided the pretty embroidery girl whom, on my first arrival at the house, I had seen holding the silks for the Countess's work. She advanced, and gave a note into my hands, and was then retiring.
"From the Countess, my pretty maid?" demanded I.
"No, sir," she replied. "Pray do not tell the Countess that I gave it to you;" and so saying, she glided out of the chamber faster than she came.
I opened the note immediately, seeing that there was some mystery in the business; and with a tumult of feelings varying at every word, like the light clouds driven across an autumn sky, now all sunshine, now all shadow, I read what follows:--
"Monsieur le Comte,
"I have just learned from my father, that by some strange error you have not yet heard of my recovery, and that you have been passing the best of your days in regret for having, as you imagined, killed me, though we are both well aware that the wound I received was given in your own defence. I have been misled, Monsieur le Comte, by those who should have taught me right; but I will no longer be commanded, even by my father, to do what is against my conscience; and, therefore, I write you this letter, to tell you that I am still in life. So conscious was I from the first that I had received my wound as a punishment from Heaven for that which I was engaged in, that, on recovering my senses at the château, I attributed my situation to the accidental discharge of my own gun. All I can add is, that I always loved you, and would have served you with all my heart, had not other people put passions and wishes into my head that I ought never to have entertained. From all that, my eyes are now cleared; and, as a proof of it, I give you the following information--that if you will this evening at eight o'clock, when it is beginning to grow dusk, go sufficiently attended to the first carrefour on the road to Vincennes, you will have the means of saving her you love best from much fear and uncomfort. Even should you be too late, be under no dread that she will meet with any serious evil. On that score depend upon
"Jean Baptiste Arnault.
"P.S.--The carriage in which they convey her is red, with a black boot on each side."