“Lively and frank,” said he.  “Some time after my arrival in France, I played with him and with the Duchesse de Beaufort at Fontainebleau; for he wished, he said, to win my gold-pieces, my fine Portugal money.  He asked me the reason why I came into this country.  ‘Truly, Sire,’ said I, frankly, ’I came with no intention of enlisting myself in your service, but only to pass some time at your court, and afterward at that of Spain; but you have charmed me so much that, instead of going farther, if you desire my service, I will devote myself to you till death.’  Then he embraced me, and assured me that I could not find a better master, or one who would love me more.  Alas!  I have found it so.  And for my part, I sacrificed everything to him, even my love; and I would have done more, had it been possible to do more than renounce Mademoiselle de Montmorency.”

The good Marechal had tears in his eyes; but the young Marquis d’Effiat and the Italians, looking at one another, could not help smiling to think that at present the Princesse de Conde was far from young and pretty.  Cinq-Mars noticed this interchange of glances, and smiled also, but bitterly.

“Is it true then,” he thought, “that the affections meet the same fate as the fashions, and that the lapse of a few years can throw the same ridicule upon a costume and upon love?  Happy is he who does not outlive his youth and his illusions, and who carries his treasures with him to the grave!”

But—­again, with effort breaking the melancholy course of his thoughts, and wishing that the good Marechal should read nothing unpleasant upon the countenances of his hosts, he said: 

“People spoke, then, with much freedom to King Henri?  Possibly, however, he found it necessary to assume that tone at the beginning of his reign; but when he was master did he change it?”

“Never! no, never, to his last day, did our great King cease to be the same.  He did not blush to be a man, and he spoke to men with force and sensibility.  Ah!  I fancy I see him now, embracing the Duc de Guise in his carriage, on the very day of his death; he had just made one of his lively pleasantries to me, and the Duke said to him, ’You are, in my opinion, one of the most agreeable men in the world, and destiny ordained us for each other.  For, had you been but an ordinary man, I should have taken you into my service at whatever price; but since heaven ordained that you should be born a great King, it is inevitable that I belong to you.’  Oh, great man!” cried Bassompierre, with tears in his eyes, and perhaps a little excited by the frequent bumpers he had drunk, “you said well, ‘When you have lost me you will learn my value.’”