The Marechaux de Vitri and Bassompierre, the Comte de Cremail, M. du Fargis, and M. du Coudrai Montpensier were then prisoners in the Bastille upon different counts.  But, as length of time makes confinement less irksome, they were treated very civilly, and indulged with a great share of freedom.  Their friends came to see them, and sometimes dined with them.  By means of M. du Fargis, who had married my aunt, I got acquainted with the rest, and by conversing with them discovered very remarkable emotions in some of them, upon which I could not help reflecting.  The Marechal de Vitri was a gentleman of mean parts, but bold, even to rashness, and his having been formerly employed to kill the Marechal d’Ancre had given him in the common vogue, though I think unjustly, the air of a man of business and expedition.  He appeared to me enraged against the Cardinal, and I concluded he might do service in the present juncture, but did not address myself directly to him, and thought it the wisest way first to sift the Comte de Cremail, who was a man of sound sense, and could influence the Marechal de Vitri as he pleased.  He apprehended me at half a word, and immediately asked me if I had made myself known to any of the prisoners.  I answered, readily: 

“No, monsieur; and I will tell you my reasons in a very few words.  Bassompierre is a tattler; I expect to do nothing with the Marechal de Vitri but by your means.  I suspect the honesty of Du Coudrai, and as for my uncle, Du Fargis, he is a gallant man, but has no headpiece.”

“Whom, then, do you confide in at Paris?” said the Comte de Cremail.

“I dare trust no man living,” said I, “but yourself.”

“It is very well,” said he, briskly; “you are the man for me.  I am above eighty years old, and you but twenty-five; I will qualify your heat, and you my chilliness.”

We went upon business, drew up our plan, and at parting he said these very words:  “Let me alone one week, and after that I will tell you more of my mind, for I hope to convince the Cardinal that I am good for something more than writing the ‘Jeu de l’Inconnu.’”

You must know that the “Jeu de l’Inconnu” was a book, indeed, very ill written, which the Comte de Cremail had formerly published, and which the Cardinal had grossly ridiculed.  You will be surprised, without doubt, that I should think of prisoners for an affair of this importance, but the nature of it was such that it could not be put into better hands, as you will see by and by.

A week after, going to visit the prisoners, and Cremail and myself being accidentally left alone, we took a walk upon the terrace, where, after a thousand thanks for the confidence I had put in him, and as many protestations of his readiness to serve the Comte de Soissons, he spoke thus:  “There is nothing but the thrust of a sword or the city of Paris that can rid us of the Cardinal.  Had I been at the enterprise of Amiens, I think I should not have missed my blow,