Rochefort, rendered suspicious and cautious by these words, entered the apartment, where he found Mazarin sitting at the table, dressed in his ordinary garb and as one of the prelates of the Church, his costume being similar to that of the abbes in that day, excepting that his scarf and stockings were violet.

As the door was closed Rochefort cast a glance toward Mazarin, which was answered by one, equally furtive, from the minister.

There was little change in the cardinal; still dressed with sedulous care, his hair well arranged and curled, his person perfumed, he looked, owing to his extreme taste in dress, only half his age.  But Rochefort, who had passed five years in prison, had become old in the lapse of a few years; the dark locks of this estimable friend of the defunct Cardinal Richelieu were now white; the deep bronze of his complexion had been succeeded by a mortal pallor which betokened debility.  As he gazed at him Mazarin shook his head slightly, as much as to say, “This is a man who does not appear to me fit for much.”

After a pause, which appeared an age to Rochefort, Mazarin took from a bundle of papers a letter, and showing it to the count, he said: 

“I find here a letter in which you sue for liberty, Monsieur de Rochefort.  You are in prison, then?”

Rochefort trembled in every limb at this question.  “But I thought,” he said, “that your eminence knew that circumstance better than any one ——­ "

“I?  Oh no!  There is a congestion of prisoners in the Bastile, who were cooped up in the time of Monsieur de Richelieu; I don’t even know their names.”

“Yes, but in regard to myself, my lord, it cannot be so, for I was removed from the Chatelet to the Bastile owing to an order from your eminence.”

“You think you were.”

“I am certain of it.”

“Ah, stay!  I fancy I remember it.  Did you not once refuse to undertake a journey to Brussels for the queen?”

“Ah! ah!” exclaimed Rochefort.  “There is the true reason!  Idiot that I am, though I have been trying to find it out for five years, I never found it out.”

“But I do not say it was the cause of your imprisonment.  I merely ask you, did you not refuse to go to Brussels for the queen, whilst you had consented to go there to do some service for the late cardinal?”

“That is the very reason I refused to go back to Brussels.  I was there at a fearful moment.  I was sent there to intercept a correspondence between Chalais and the archduke, and even then, when I was discovered I was nearly torn to pieces.  How could I, then, return to Brussels?  I should injure the queen instead of serving her.”

“Well, since the best motives are liable to misconstruction, the queen saw in your refusal nothing but a refusal —­ a distinct refusal she had also much to complain of you during the lifetime of the late cardinal; yes, her majesty the queen ——­ "