[Monsieur:  Since God wills that men should have recourse to a frank and entire confession to be absolved of their faults in this world, I indicate to you the steps you must take to be delivered from this danger.  Your Highness has commenced well; you must continue.  This is all I can say to you.]

“As to the magnificent and powerful Due de Bouillon, sovereign lord of Sedan and general-in-chief of the armies in Italy, he has just been arrested by his officers in the midst of his soldiers, concealed in a truss of straw.  There remain, therefore, only our two young neighbors.  They imagine they have the camp wholly at their orders, while they really have only the red troops.  All the rest, being Monsieur’s men, will not act, and my troops will arrest them.  However, I have permitted them to appear to obey.  If they give the signal at half-past eleven, they will be arrested at the first step.  If not, the King will give them up to me this evening.  Do not open your eyes so wide.  He will give them up to me, I repeat, this night, between midnight and one o’clock.  You see that all has been done without you, Joseph.  We can dispense with you very well; and truly, all this time, I do not see that we have received any great service from you.  You grow negligent.”

“Ah, Monseigneur! did you but know the trouble I have had to discover the route of the bearers of the treaty!  I only learned it by risking my life between these young people.”

The Cardinal laughed contemptuously, leaning back in his chair.

“Thou must have been very ridiculous and very fearful in that box, Joseph; I dare say it was the first time in thy life thou ever heardst love spoken of.  Dost thou like the language, Father Joseph?  Tell me, dost thou clearly understand it?  I doubt whether thou hast formed a very refined idea of it.”

Richelieu, his arms crossed, looked at his discomfited Capuchin with infinite delight, and continued in the scornfully familiar tone of a grand seigneur, which he sometimes assumed, pleasing himself with putting forth the noblest expressions through the most impure lips: 

“Come, now, Joseph, give me a definition of love according to thy idea.  What can it be—­for thou seest it exists out of romances.  This worthy youngster undertook these little conspiracies through love.  Thou heardst it thyself with throe unworthy ears.  Come, what is love?  For my part, I know nothing about it.”

The monk was astounded, and looked upon the ground with the stupid eye of some base animal.  After long consideration, he replied in a drawling and nasal voice: 

“It must be a kind of malignant fever which leads the brain astray; but in truth, Monseigneur, I have never reflected on it until this moment.  I have always been embarrassed in speaking to a woman.  I wish women could be omitted from society altogether; for I do not see what use they are, unless it be to disclose secrets, like the little Duchess or Marion de Lorme, whom I can not too strongly recommend to your Eminence.  She thought of everything, and herself threw our little prophecy among the conspirators with great address.  We have not been without the marvellous this time.  As in the siege of Hesdin, all we have to do is to find a window through which you may pass on the day of the execution.”