The marquis had seen the king too often in his childhood, and the portraits that had been made of him since, to believe for an instant that the personage before him was the young Louis XIII. He thought that his poor Adamas was going mad.
"Answer, I tell you!" continued the councillor impatiently. "Why do you give me the name applied to majesty?"
"I do not know, monsieur," replied the crafty Adamas. "I do not know what I am saying nor where I am. My head is in a whirl with some surprising news which I have just learned, and which I ask your permission to tell my master."
"Tell it! speak! say on!" cried the councillor in an extraordinarily authoritative tone.
"Well, master," said Adamas, addressing the marquis, and apparently not observing the councillor's agitation, "the king is dead!"
"The king is dead?" cried Monsieur Lenet, rushing toward the door, as if to go out without taking leave of anyone.
But he paused, suddenly suspicious.
"From whom did you learn this news?" he said, scrutinizing Adamas with gleaming eyes.
"I learned it from the decrees of destiny. I learned it from heaven itself," said Adamas with an inspired air.
"What does this man mean?" demanded Monsieur Lenet. "Bid him explain himself, Monsieur de Bois-Doré; I insist upon it, do you understand? and if this news of his is false, woe to him and to you!"