the state apartments conversing in suppressed tones, some anxiously expecting the entrance of the King, and others as impatiently awaiting the arrival of the all-powerful minister.  One of these groups, and that perhaps the most inimical of all that brilliant assemblage to the Cardinal, was composed of the two MM. de Marillac, the Duc de Guise, and the Marquis de Bassompierre.  As they conversed earnestly with one another, the three first-named nobles remained grave and stern, as though they had met together to discuss some subject of vital and absorbing interest rather than to participate in the festivities of a monarch, while even Bassompierre himself seemed ill at ease, and strove in vain to assume his usual light and frivolous demeanour.

“His Eminence moves tardily to night,” he said in reply to a remark of the Duke.  “Can it be that we shall not have the honour of seeing him exhibit his crimson robes on this magnificent occasion?”

“It would seem so,” was the moody rejoinder, “for time wears, and the King himself cannot delay his entrance much longer.  Be wary, gentlemen, for should Richelieu indeed arrive, he will be dangerous to-night.  I watched him narrowly at noon, and I remarked that he smiled more than once when there was no visible cause for mirth, and you well known what his smiles portend.”

“Too well,” said the Marechal de Marillac; “death, or at best disgrace to some new victim.  Shame to our brave France that she should submit even for a day to be thus priest-ridden!”

By an excess of caution the four nobles had gradually retreated to an obscure recess, half concealed by some heavy drapery; and Bassompierre, in an attitude of easy indifference, stood leaning against the tapestried panels that divided the sumptuous apartment which they occupied from an inner closet that had not been thrown open to the guests.  Unfortunately, however, the peculiar construction of this closet was unknown even to the brilliant Gentleman of the Bedchamber, or he would have been at once aware that they could not have chosen a more dangerous position in which to discuss any forbidden topic.  The trite proverb that “walls have ears” was perhaps never more fully exemplified than when applied to those of the Louvre at that period; many of them, and those all connected with the more public apartments, being composed of double panelling, between which a sufficient space had been left to admit of the passage of an eavesdropper, and the closet in question chanced to be one of these convenient lurking-places.  A slight stir in the courtly crowd had for a moment interrupted the conversation, but as it almost immediately subsided, the subject by which the imprudent courtiers were engrossed was resumed; and meanwhile the Cardinal-Minister had arrived at the palace.  He was not, however, attended by his train of gentlemen and guards; his name had not been announced by the royal ushers, nor had he yet joined the gorgeous company who were all prepared