“Well, then, madame, not a day passes in which I do not suffer affronts from your princes and your lordly servants, all of them automata who do not perceive that I wind up the spring that makes them move, nor do they see that beneath my quiet demeanor lies the still scorn of an injured, irritated man, who has sworn to himself to master them one of these days.

We have arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he is the least dangerous among them. There is the Prince de Conde — — ”

“The hero of Rocroy. Do you think of him?”

“Yes, madame, often and often, but pazienza, as we say in Italy; next, after Monsieur de Conde, comes the Duke of Orleans.”

“What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the king’s