The Marechal made a profound bow, fell back behind the chair of the minister, and gave place to the Cardinal de la Vallette, who, incessantly bowing and flattering and swearing devotion and entire obedience to the Cardinal, as if to expiate the obduracy of his father, the Duc d’Epernon, received in return a few vague words, to no meaning or purpose, the Cardinal all the while looking toward the door, to see who should follow.  He had even the mortification to find himself abruptly interrupted by the minister, who cried at the most flattering period of his honeyed discourse: 

“Ah! is that you at last, my dear Fabert?  How I have longed to see you, to talk of the siege!”

The General, with a brusque and awkward manner, saluted the Cardinal-Generalissimo, and presented to him the officers who had come from the camp with him.  He talked some time of the operations of the siege, and the Cardinal seemed to be paying him court now, in order to prepare him afterward for receiving his orders even on the field of battle; he spoke to the officers who accompanied him, calling them by their names, and questioning them about the camp.

They all stood aside to make way for the Duc d’Angouleme—­that Valois, who, having struggled against Henri IV, now prostrated himself before Richelieu.  He solicited a command, having been only third in rank at the siege of Rochelle.  After him came young Mazarin, ever supple and insinuating, but already confident in his fortune.

The Duc d’Halluin came after them; the Cardinal broke off the compliments he was addressing to the others, to utter, in a loud voice: 

“Monsieur le Duc, I inform you with pleasure that the King has made you a marshal of France; you will sign yourself Schomberg, will you not, at Leucate, delivered, as we hope, by you?  But pardon me, here is Monsieur de Montauron, who has doubtless something important to communicate.”

“Oh, no, my lord, I would only say that the poor young man whom you deigned to consider in your service is dying of hunger.”

“Pshaw! at such a moment to speak of things like this!  Your little Corneille will not write anything good; we have only seen ‘Le Cid’ and ‘Les Horaces’ as yet.  Let him work, let him work! it is known that he is in my service, and that is disagreeable.  However, since you interest yourself in the matter, I give him a pension of five hundred crowns on my privy purse.”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer retired, charmed with the liberality of the minister, and went home to receive with great affability the dedication of Cinna, wherein the great Corneille compares his soul to that of Augustus, and thanks him for having given alms ’a quelques Muses’.

The Cardinal, annoyed by this importunity, rose, observing that the day was advancing, and that it was time to set out to visit the King.

At this moment, and as the greatest noblemen present were offering their arms to aid him in walking, a man in the robe of a referendary advanced toward him, saluting him with a complacent and confident smile which astonished all the people there, accustomed to the great world, seeming to say:  “We have secret affairs together; you shall see how agreeable he makes himself to me.  I am at home in his cabinet.”  His heavy and awkward manner, however, betrayed a very inferior being; it was Laubardemont.