“I have told Monseigneur,” resumed Joseph—­for these two ferocious Seyds alternated their discourse like the shepherds of Virgil—­“I have told him that it would be well to get rid of this young D’Effiat, and that I would charge myself with the business, if such were his good pleasure.  It would be easy to destroy him in the opinion of the King.”

“It would be safer to make him die of his wound,” answered Laubardemont; “if his Eminence would have the goodness to command me, I know intimately the assistant-physician, who cured me of a blow on the forehead, and is now attending to him.  He is a prudent man, entirely devoted to Monseigneur the Cardinal-Duke, and whose affairs have been somewhat embarrassed by gambling.”

“I believe,” replied Joseph, with an air of modesty, mingled with a touch of bitterness, “that if his Excellency proposed to employ any one in this useful project, it should be his accustomed negotiator, who has had some success in the past.”

“I fancy that I could enumerate some signal instances,” answered Laubardemont, “and very recent ones, of which the difficulty was great.”

“Ah, no doubt,” said the father, with a bow and an air of consideration and politeness, “your most bold and skilfully executed commission was the trial of Urbain Grandier, the magician.  But, with Heaven’s assistance, one may be enabled to do things quite as worthy and bold.  It is not without merit, for instance,” added he, dropping his eyes like a young girl, “to have extirpated vigorously a royal Bourbon branch.”

“It was not very difficult,” answered the magistrate, with bitterness, “to select a soldier from the guards to kill the Comte de Soissons; but to preside, to judge—­”

“And to execute one’s self,” interrupted the heated Capuchin, “is certainly less difficult than to educate a man from infancy in the thought of accomplishing great things with discretion, and to bear all tortures, if necessary, for the love of heaven, rather than reveal the name of those who have armed him with their justice, or to die courageously upon the body of him that he has struck, as did one who was commissioned by me.  He uttered no cry at the blow of the sword of Riquemont, the equerry of the Prince.  He died like a saint; he was my pupil.”

“To give orders is somewhat different from running risk one’s self.”

“And did I risk nothing at the siege of Rochelle?”

“Of being drowned in a sewer, no doubt,” said Laubardemont.

“And you,” said Joseph, “has your danger been that of catching your fingers in instruments of torture?  And all this because the Abbess of the Ursulines is your niece.”

“It was a good thing for your brothers of Saint Francis, who held the hammers; but I—­I was struck in the forehead by this same Cinq-Mars, who was leading an enraged multitude.”

“Are you quite sure of that?” cried Joseph, delighted.  “Did he dare to act thus against the commands of the King?” The joy which this discovery gave him made him forget his anger.