"And, I think," said Louvois, his lip curling with a smile, bitter and fiend-like, "I think you were one of those, were you not, who went down on the following morning to the spot where the young Marquis de Hericourt had been murdered? Your name is amongst those who were seen there, so say no more. But now tell me, where is your master at this moment?"
Jerome Riquet smarted under a strong perception of having been outwitted; and the consequence was, that knowing, or at least believing, that when a man falls into one such piece of ill luck, it generally goes on, with a sort of run against him; he made up his mind to know as little as possible about any thing, for fear of falling into a new error, and replied to Louvois' question, that he could not tell.
"Is he in his hotel at Versailles, or not, Sir?" said the minister sternly; "endeavour to forget for once that you are professionally a liar, and give a straight-forward answer, for on your telling truth depends your immediate transmission to the Bastille or not. Was your master at home when you left the house, or out?"
"He was out then, Sir, certainly," replied Riquet.
"On horseback, or on foot?" demanded Louvois.
"On horseback," replied the man. "Now, answer me one other question," continued the minister. "Have you not been heard, this very morning, to tell the head groom to have horses ready to go to Paris?"
"Sir," said Jerome, with a look of impudent raillery that he dared not assume towards the King, but which nothing upon earth could have repressed in addressing Louvois at that moment, "Sir, I feel convinced that I must possess a valet de chambre without knowing it, for nobody on earth could repeat my words so accurately, unless I had some scoundrel of a valet to betray them as soon as they were spoken."
"Sir, your impudence shall have its just punishment," said Louvois, taking up a pen and dipping it in the ink, but the King waved his hand, saying, "Put down the pen, Monsieur de Louvois! You forget that you are in the King's cabinet and in his presence!--Riquet, you may retire."
Riquet did not need a second bidding, but, with a look of profound awe and reverence towards Louis, laid his hand upon his heart, lifted up his shoulders, like the jaws of a crocodile ready to swallow up his head, and bowing almost to the ground, walked backward out of the room. Louvois stood before the King, for an instant, with a look of angry mortification, which he suppressed with difficulty. Louis suffered him to remain thus, and, perhaps, did not enjoy a little the humiliation he had inflicted upon a man whom he, more than once in his life, declared to be perfectly insupportable, though he could not do without him. At length, however, he spoke in a grave but not an angry tone, saying,
"From the questions that you asked that man just now, Monsieur de Louvois, I am led to believe that you have received some fresh information regarding this young gentleman--this Count de Morseiul. My determination up to this moment, strengthened by the advice of Monsieur de Meaux, Monsieur Pelisson, and others, is simply this: to pursue to the utmost the means of persuasion and conciliation in order to induce him, by fair means, to return to the bosom of the Catholic church."