III

M. le Duc is well guarded.

I stepped out briskly from the inn, pausing now and again to inquire my way to the Hotel St. Quentin, which stood, I knew, in the Quartier Marais, where all the grand folk lived.  Once I had found the broad, straight Rue St. Denis, all I need do was to follow it over the hill down to the river-bank; my eyes were free, therefore, to stare at all the strange sights of the great city—­markets and shops and churches and prisons.  But most of all did I gape at the crowds in the streets.  I had scarce realized there were so many people in the world as passed me that summer morning in the Town of Paris.  Bewilderingly busy and gay the place appeared to my country eyes, though in truth at that time Paris was at its very worst, the spirit being well-nigh crushed out of it by the sieges and the iron rule of the Sixteen.

I knew little enough of politics, and yet I was not so dull as not to see that great events must happen soon.  A crisis had come.  I looked at the people I passed who were going about their business so tranquilly.  Every one of them must be either Mayenne’s man, or Navarre’s.  Before a week was out these peaceable citizens might be using pikes for tools and exchanging bullets for good mornings.  Whatever happened, here was I in Paris in the thick of it!  My feet fairly danced under me; I could not reach the hotel soon enough.  Half was I glad of Monsieur’s danger, for it gave me chance to show what stuff I was made of.  Live for him, die for him—­whatever fate could offer I was ready for.

The hotel, when at length I arrived before it, was no disappointment.  Here one did not wait till midday to see the sun; the street was of decent width, and the houses held themselves back with reserve, like the proud gentlemen who inhabited them.  Nor did one here regret his possession of a nose, as he was forced to do in the Rue Coupejarrets.

Of all the mansions in the place, the Hotel St. Quentin was, in my opinion, the most imposing; carved and ornamented and stately, with gardens at the side.  But there was about it none of that stir and liveliness one expects to see about the houses of the great.  No visitors passed in or out, and the big iron gates were shut, as if none were looked for.  Of a truth, the persons who visited Monsieur these days preferred to slip in by the postern after nightfall, as if there had never been a time when they were proud to be seen in his hall.

Beyond the grilles a sentry, in the green and scarlet of Monsieur’s men-at-arms, stood on guard, and I called out to him boldly.

He turned at once; then looked as if the sight of me scarce repaid him.

“I wish to enter, if you please,” I said.  “I am come to see M. le Duc.”

“You?” he ejaculated, his eye wandering over my attire, which, none of the newest, showed signs of my journey.