Rochefort smiled contemptuously.

“Since I was a faithful servant, my lord, to Cardinal Richelieu during his life, it stands to reason that now, after his death, I should serve you well, in defiance of the whole world.”

“With regard to myself, Monsieur de Rochefort,” replied Mazarin, “I am not, like Monsieur de Richelieu, all-powerful.  I am but a minister, who wants no servants, being myself nothing but a servant of the queen’s.  Now, the queen is of a sensitive nature.  Hearing of your refusal to obey her she looked upon it as a declaration of war, and as she considers you a man of superior talent, and consequently dangerous, she desired me to make sure of you; that is the reason of your being shut up in the Bastile.  But your release can be managed.  You are one of those men who can comprehend certain matters and having understood them, can act with energy ——­ "

“Such was Cardinal Richelieu’s opinion, my lord.”

“The cardinal,” interrupted Mazarin, “was a great politician and therein shone his vast superiority over me.  I am a straightforward, simple man; that’s my great disadvantage.  I am of a frankness of character quite French.”

Rochefort bit his lips in order to prevent a smile.

“Now to the point.  I want friends; I want faithful servants.  When I say I want, I mean the queen wants them.  I do nothing without her commands —­ pray understand that; not like Monsieur de Richelieu, who went on just as he pleased.  So I shall never be a great man, as he was, but to compensate for that, I shall be a good man, Monsieur de Rochefort, and I hope to prove it to you.”

Rochefort knew well the tones of that soft voice, in which sounded sometimes a sort of gentle lisp, like the hissing of young vipers.

“I am disposed to believe your eminence,” he replied; “though I have had but little evidence of that good-nature of which your eminence speaks.  Do not forget that I have been five years in the Bastile and that no medium of viewing things is so deceptive as the grating of a prison.”

“Ah, Monsieur de Rochefort! have I not told you already that I had nothing to do with that?  The queen —­ cannot you make allowances for the pettishness of a queen and a princess?  But that has passed away as suddenly as it came, and is forgotten.”

“I can easily suppose, sir, that her majesty has forgotten it amid the fetes and the courtiers of the Palais Royal, but I who have passed those years in the Bastile ——­ "

“Ah! mon Dieu! my dear Monsieur de Rochefort! do you absolutely think that the Palais Royal is the abode of gayety?  No.  We have had great annoyances there.  As for me, I play my game squarely, fairly, and above board, as I always do.  Let us come to some conclusion.  Are you one of us, Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“I am very desirous of being so, my lord, but I am totally in the dark about everything.  In the Bastile one talks politics only with soldiers and jailers, and you have not an idea, my lord, how little is known of what is going on by people of that sort; I am of Monsieur de Bassompierre’s party.  Is he still one of the seventeen peers of France?”