“Continue,” said the queen.

“Well, then, madame, not a day passes in which I do not suffer affronts from your princes and your lordly servants, all of them automata who do not perceive that I wind up the spring that makes them move, nor do they see that beneath my quiet demeanor lies the still scorn of an injured, irritated man, who has sworn to himself to master them one of these days.  We have arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he is the least dangerous among them.  There is the Prince de Conde ——­ "

“The hero of Rocroy.  Do you think of him?”

“Yes, madame, often and often, but pazienza, as we say in Italy; next, after Monsieur de Conde, comes the Duke of Orleans.”

“What are you saying?  The first prince of the blood, the king’s uncle!”

“No! not the first prince of the blood, not the king’s uncle, but the base conspirator, the soul of every cabal, who pretends to lead the brave people who are weak enough to believe in the honor of a prince of the blood —­ not the prince nearest to the throne, not the king’s uncle, I repeat, but the murderer of Chalais, of Montmorency and of Cinq-Mars, who is playing now the same game he played long ago and who thinks that he will win the game because he has a new adversary —­ instead of a man who threatened, a man who smiles.  But he is mistaken; I shall not leave so near the queen that source of discord with which the deceased cardinal so often caused the anger of the king to rage above the boiling point.”

Anne blushed and buried her face in her hands.

“What am I to do?” she said, bowed down beneath the voice of her tyrant.

“Endeavor to remember the names of those faithful servants who crossed the Channel, in spite of Monsieur de Richelieu, tracking the roads along which they passed by their blood, to bring back to your majesty certain jewels given by you to Buckingham.”

Anne arose, full of majesty, and as if touched by a spring, and looking at the cardinal with the haughty dignity which in the days of her youth had made her so powerful:  “You are insulting me!” she said.

“I wish,” continued Mazarin, finishing, as it were, the speech this sudden movement of the queen had cut; “I wish, in fact, that you should now do for your husband what you formerly did for your lover.”

“Again that accusation!” cried the queen.  “I thought that calumny was stifled or extinct; you have spared me till now, but since you speak of it, once for all, I tell you ——­ "

“Madame, I do not ask you to tell me,” said Mazarin, astounded by this returning courage.

“I will tell you all,” replied Anne.  “Listen:  there were in truth, at that epoch, four devoted hearts, four loyal spirits, four faithful swords, who saved more than my life —­ my honor ——­ "

“Ah! you confess it!” exclaimed Mazarin.

“Is it only the guilty whose honor is at the sport of others, sir? and cannot women be dishonored by appearances?  Yes, appearances were against me and I was about to suffer dishonor.  However, I swear I was not guilty, I swear it by ——­ "