“In two hours, madame, that man shall set out to find our dear duke in his retreat; he who went out of Paris as a fugitive shall return triumphantly.”

“One word more, Mayneville; are our friends in Paris warned?”

“What friends?”—­“The leaguers.”

“Heaven forbid, madame; to tell a bourgeois is to tell all Paris.  Once the deed is done, and the prisoner safe in the cloister, we can defend ourselves against an army.  Then we should risk nothing by crying from the roof of the convent, ‘We have the Valois!’”

“You are both skillful and prudent, Mayneville.  Do you know, though, that my responsibility is great, and that no woman will ever have conceived and executed such a project?”

“I know it, madame; therefore I counsel you in trembling.”

“The monks will be armed under their robes?”

“Yes.”

“Mind you kill those two fellows whom we saw pass, riding at the sides of the carriage, then we can describe what passes as pleases us best.”

“Kill those poor devils, madame! do you think that necessary?”

“De Loignac! would he be a great loss?”

“He is a brave soldier.”

“A parvenu, like that other ill-looking fellow who pranced on the left, with his fiery eyes and his black skin.”

“Oh! that one I do not care so much about; I do not know him, and I agree with your highness in disliking his looks.”

“Then you abandon him to me?” laughed the duchess.

“Oh! yes, madame.  What I said was only for your renown, and the morality of the party that we represent.”

“Good; Mayneville, I know you are a virtuous man, and I will sign you a certificate of it if you like.  You need have nothing to do with it; they will defend the Valois and get killed.  To you I recommend that young man.”

“Who?”

“He who just left us; see if he be really gone, and if he be not some spy sent by our enemies.”

Mayneville opened the window, and tried to look out.

“Oh! what a dark night,” said he.

“An excellent night:  the darker the better.  Therefore, good courage, my captain.”

“Yes, but we shall see nothing.”

“God, whom we fight for, will see for us.”

Mayneville, who did not seem quite so sure of the intervention of Providence in affairs of this nature, remained at the window looking out.

“Do you see any one?” asked the duchess.

“No, but I hear the tramp of horses.”

“It is they; all goes well.”  And the duchess touched the famous pair of golden scissors at her side.

CHAPTER XLII.

How Dom Gorenflot blessed the king as he passed before the priory of the Jacobins.