"Do not forget this," he said: "the fifth house on the right-hand side of the Rue des Mathurins as you enter from the Rue St. Jacques."
"Thanks; I will not forget. However did you find out?"
"It is too long to tell, and I must return these papers to De Ganache."
So saying, he went off.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CHURCH UNDER THE GROUND
The wicket gate near the riding-school was used almost exclusively by the servants of the palace, to whom it gave access to that maze of nameless streets, dingy, tumble-down houses, and squalid shops that was known as the Magasins. Here it was that the waiting-woman and the lackey stole forth to meet their lovers. Through this filtered all the backstairs' gossip of the Louvre, and more besides, for the small shopkeepers of the Magasins upheld a reputation as evil as the place in which they plied their trade.
At the mouth of one of these streets, only a few yards away from the wicket, was a small eating-house. It was here that I repaired at sunset, and calling for a basin of lentil soup sat me down at a rough table near the door, which commanded a view of the gate. It had rained that afternoon, a summer shower that passed as quickly as it came, but the eaves were still dripping, and the water was trickling in glistening lines down the walls and bubbling in the gutters. There were three other clients in the house besides myself. One contented himself, as I had, with some lentil soup, and the other two, sitting near a great spit, impatiently watched a leg of kid they had brought with them for their supper being turned thereon by a small dog, now and then exchanging a word or so with the bare-armed hostess who was supervising the process. Whilst this was going on my fellow-companion with the lentil soup kept casting envious glances at the spit, sniffing the savoury odour of the roasting meat as he slowly ate pieces of black bread sopped in the thick soup.
The wicket was open, for until compline ingress and egress was free; nevertheless, there was a sentry on duty, an arquebusier, who paced slowly up and down whistling the "Rappel d'Aunis," stopping only to exchange some barrack-room badinage with every serving-wench who, as she went out or came in, found a moment or so to spare for him. It was a lax enough watch, and it was clear that guard duty at the wicket was not so dull a matter as one might have imagined.
One of these passing affairs was rather longer and more interesting than usual, and he of the lentil soup was chuckling to himself over it, when we heard the clattering of horses at a trot coming up the road lying between us and the gate. The girl uttered a little cry and fled down the walk towards the Louvre, whilst the sentry drew himself up stiffly.