And the four friends flew at a gallop along the road to Bethune.

61 The Carmelite convent at Bethune

Great criminals bear about them a kind of predestination which makes them surmount all obstacles, which makes them escape all dangers, up to the moment which a wearied Providence has marked as the rock of their impious fortunes.

It was thus with Milady.  She escaped the cruisers of both nations, and arrived at Boulogne without accident.

When landing at Portsmouth, Milady was an Englishwoman whom the persecutions of the French drove from La Rochelle; when landing at Boulogne, after a two days’ passage, she passed for a Frenchwoman whom the English persecuted at Portsmouth out of their hatred for France.

Milady had, likewise, the best of passports—­her beauty, her noble appearance, and the liberality with which she distributed her pistoles.  Freed from the usual formalities by the affable smile and gallant manners of an old governor of the port, who kissed her hand, she only remained long enough at Boulogne to put into the post a letter, conceived in the following terms: 

“To his Eminence Monseigneur the Cardinal Richelieu, in his camp before La Rochelle.

“Monseigneur, Let your Eminence be reassured.  His Grace the Duke of Buckingham will not set out for France.

“Milady de ——­

“Boulogne, evening of the twenty-fifth.

“P.S.—­According to the desire of your Eminence, I report to the convent of the Carmelites at Bethune, where I will await your orders.”

Accordingly, that same evening Milady commenced her journey.  Night overtook her; she stopped, and slept at an inn.  At five o’clock the next morning she again proceeded, and in three hours after entered Bethune.  She inquired for the convent of the Carmelites, and went thither immediately.

The superior met her; Milady showed her the cardinal’s order.  The abbess assigned her a chamber, and had breakfast served.

All the past was effaced from the eyes of this woman; and her looks, fixed on the future, beheld nothing but the high fortunes reserved for her by the cardinal, whom she had so successfully served without his name being in any way mixed up with the sanguinary affair.  The ever-new passions which consumed her gave to her life the appearance of those clouds which float in the heavens, reflecting sometimes azure, sometimes fire, sometimes the opaque blackness of the tempest, and which leave no traces upon the earth behind them but devastation and death.

After breakfast, the abbess came to pay her a visit.  There is very little amusement in the cloister, and the good superior was eager to make the acquaintance of her new boarder.

Milady wished to please the abbess.  This was a very easy matter for a woman so really superior as she was.  She tried to be agreeable, and she was charming, winning the good superior by her varied conversation and by the graces of her whole personality.