Does all go well?”

“Yes, I saw him yesterday at Saint-Germain.  The old cat is very ill at Narbonne; he is going ‘ad patres’.  But we must manage our affairs shrewdly, for it is not the first time that he has played the torpid.  Have you people enough for this evening, my dear Fontrailles?”

“Be easy; Montresor is coming with a hundred of Monsieur’s gentlemen.  You will recognize him; he will be disguised as a master-mason, with a rule in his hand.  But, above all, do not forget the passwords.  Do you know them all well, you and your friends?”

“Yes, all except the Abbe de Gondi, who has not yet arrived; but ’Dieu me pardonne’, I think he is there himself!  Who the devil would have known him?”

And here a little man without a cassock, dressed as a soldier of the French guards, and wearing a very black false moustache, slipped between them.  He danced about with a joyous air, and rubbed his hands.

“Vive Dieu! all goes on well, my friend.  Fiesco could not do better;” and rising upon his toes to tap Olivier upon the shoulder, he continued: 

“Do you know that for a man who has just quitted the rank of pages, you don’t manage badly, Sire Olivier d’Entraigues? and you will be among our illustrious men if we find a Plutarch.  All is well organized; you arrive at the very moment, neither too soon nor too late, like a true party chief.  Fontrailles, this young man will get on, I prophesy.  But we must make haste; in two hours we shall have some of the archbishops of Paris, my, uncle’s parishioners.  I have instructed them well; and they will cry, ‘Long live Monsieur!  Long live the Regency!  No more of the Cardinal!’ like madmen.  They are good devotees, thanks to me, who have stirred them up.  The King is very ill.  Oh, all goes well, very well!  I come from Saint-Germain.  I have seen our friend Cinq-Mars; he is good, very good, still firm as a rock.  Ah, that is what I call a man!  How he has played with them with his careless and melancholy air!  He is master of the court at present.  The King, they say, is going to make him duke and peer.  It is much talked of; but he still hesitates.  We must decide that by our movement this evening.  The will of the people!  He must do the will of the people; we will make him hear it.  It will be the death of Richelieu, you’ll see.  It is, above all, hatred of him which is to predominate in the cries, for that is the essential thing.  That will at last decide our Gaston, who is still uncertain, is he not?”

“And how can he be anything else?” said Fontrailles.  “If he were to take a resolution to-day in our favor it would be unfortunate.”

“Why so?”

“Because we should be sure that to-morrow morning he would be against us.”

“Never mind,” replied the Abbe; “the Queen is firm.”

“And she has heart also,” said Olivier; “that gives me some hope for Cinq-Mars, who, it seems to me, has sometimes dared to frown when he looked at her.”