The curé turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was inordinately astonished, he was the abbé Castanède. As a matter of fact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a fairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one of the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the earth of one of its most cowardly villains; “But my mission,” he said to himself.
The curé and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards Julien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the whole house.
“I am poisoned,” he exclaimed, “I am suffering horribly!” He wanted an excuse to go to Geronimo’s help. He found him half suffocated by the laudanum that had been contained in the wine.
Julien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had supped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not wake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave.
“If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples,” said the singer, “I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping.”
“But the seven sovereign princes?”
“Let them wait.”
Julien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage without other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting an audience. Fortunately about four o’clock the duke wanted to take the air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate to ask him for alms. When at two yards’ distance from the great personage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole’s watch and exhibited it ostentatiously. “Follow me at a distance,” said the man without looking at him.
At a quarter of a league’s distance the duke suddenly entered a little coffee-house. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had the honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished he was told to “start again and go more slowly.”
The prince took notes. “Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave your luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can and at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at present the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for half-an-hour. Silence!”