While I was making these and the like reflections, Montresor came and told me that I was quite mistaken if I thought to be a great gainer by the late expedition; that the Queen was not pleased with my proceedings, and that the Court was persuaded that I did what lay in my power to promote the insurrection.  I confess I gave no credit to what Montresor said, for though I saw they made a jest of me in the Queen’s Cabinet, I hoped that their malice did not go so far as to diminish the merit of the service I had rendered, and never imagined that they could be capable of turning it into a crime.  Laigues, too, came from Court and told me that I was publicly laughed at, and charged with having fomented the insurrection instead of appeasing it; that I had been ridiculed two whole hours and exposed to the smart raillery of Beautru, to the buffoonery of Nogent, to the pleasantries of La Riviere, to the false compassion of the Cardinal, and to the loud laughter of the Queen.

You may guess that I was not a little moved at this, but I rather felt a slight annoyance than any transport of passion.  All sorts of notions came into my mind, and all as suddenly passed away.  I sacrificed with little or no scruple all the sweetest and brightest images which the memory of past conspiracies presented in crowds to my mind as soon as the ill-treatment I now publicly met with gave me reason to think that I might with honour engage myself in new ones.  The obligations I had to her Majesty made me reject all these thoughts, though I must confess I was brought up in them from my infancy, and Laigues and Montresor could have never shaken my resolution either by insinuating motives or making reproaches, if Argenteuil, a gentleman firmly attached to my interest, had not come into my room that moment with a frightened countenance and said: 

“You are undone; the Marechal de La Meilleraye has charged me to tell you that he verily thinks the devil is in the courtiers, who has put it into their heads that you have done all in your power to stir up the sedition.  The Marechal de La Meilleraye has laboured earnestly to inform the Queen and Cardinal of the truth of the whole matter, but both have ridiculed him for his attempt.  The Marshal said he could not excuse the injury they did you, but could not sufficiently admire the contempt they always had for the tumult, of which they foretold the consequence as if they had the gift of prophecy, always affirming that it would vanish in a night, as it really has, for he hardly met a soul in the streets.”

He added that fires so quickly extinguished as this were not likely to break out again; that he conjured me to provide for my own safety; that the King’s authority would shine out the next day with all the lustre imaginable; that the Court seemed resolved not to let slip this fatal conjuncture, and that I was to be made the first public example.

Argenteuil said:  “Villeroy did not tell me so much, because he durst not; but he so squeezed my hand ‘en passant’ that I am apt to think he knows a great deal more, and I must tell you that they have very good reason for their apprehensions, because there is not a soul to be seen in the streets, and to-morrow they may take up whom they list.”