“Let us go, gentlemen,” said M. de Mayneville, and he descended a staircase leading to a vault.  All the others followed, and Briquet brought up the rear, murmuring:  “But the page! where the devil is the page?”

CHAPTER XI

Still the league.

At the moment when Robert Briquet was about to enter, he saw Poulain waiting for him.

“Pardon,” said he, “but my friends do not know you, and decline to admit you to their councils till they know more of you.”

“It is just, and I retire, happy to have seen so many brave defenders of the Holy Union.”

“Shall I re-conduct you?”

“No, I thank you, I will not trouble you.”

“But perhaps they will not open for you; yet I am wanted.”

“Have you not a password?”

“Yes.”

“Then give it to me.  I am a friend, you know.”

“True.  It is ‘Parma and Lorraine!’”

“And they will open?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks; now return to your friends.”

Briquet took some steps as if to go out, and then stopped to explore the locality.  The result of his observations was, that the vault ran parallel to the exterior wall, and terminated in a hall destined for the mysterious council from which he had been excluded.  What confirmed him in this supposition was that he saw a light at a barred window, pierced in the wall, and guarded by a sort of wooden pipe, such as they placed at the windows of convents and prisons to intercept the view from without, while the air was still admitted.  Briquet imagined this to be the window of the hall, and thought that if he could gain this place he could see all.  He looked round him; the court had many soldiers and servants in it, but it was large, and the night was dark; besides, they were not looking his way, and the porter was busy, preparing his bed for the night.

Briquet rapidly climbed on to the cornice which ran toward the window in question, and ran along the wall like a monkey, holding on with his hands and feet to the ornaments of the sculpture.  Had the soldiers seen in the dark this figure gliding along the wall without apparent support, they would not have failed to cry, “Magic!” but they did not see him.  In four bounds he reached the window, and established himself between the bars and the pipe, so that from the inside he was concealed by the one, and from the outside by the other.

He then saw a great hall, lighted by a torch, and filled with armor of all sorts.  There were enough pikes, swords, halberds, and muskets to arm four regiments.  He gave less attention, however, to the arms than to the people engaged in distributing them, and his piercing eyes sought eagerly to distinguish their faces.

“Oh! oh!” thought he, “there is M. Cruce, little Brigard and Leclerc, who dares to call himself Bussy.  Peste! the bourgeoisie is grandly represented; but the nobility—­ah!  M. de Mayneville presses the hand of Nicholas Poulain; what a touching fraternity!  An orator, too!” continued he, as M. de Mayneville prepared to harangue the assembly.