I am
responsible for your limbs, which you expose so freely."

Cinq-Mars was somewhat astonished at this rough mode of having a service
done him, was not sorry to extricate himself thus from the affair,
having had time to reflect how very awkward it might be for him to be
recognized, after striking the head of the judicial authority, the agent
of the very Cardinal who was to present him to the King. He observed
also that around him was assembled a crowd of the lowest class of
people, among whom he blushed to find himself. He therefore followed
his old domestic without argument, and found the other three servants
waiting for him. Despite the rain and wind he mounted, and was soon upon
the highroad with his escort, having put his horse to a gallop to avoid
pursuit.

He had, however, hardly left Loudun when the sandy road, furrowed by
deep ruts completely filled with water, obliged him to slacken his pace.
The rain continued to fall heavily, and his cloak was almost saturated.
He felt a thicker one thrown over his shoulders; it was his old valet,
who had approached him, and thus exhibited toward him a maternal
solicitude.

"Well, Grandchamp," said Cinq-Mars, "now that we are clear of the riot,
tell me how you came to be there when I had ordered you to remain at the
Abbe's."

"Parbleu, Monsieur!" answered the old servant, in a grumbling tone,
"do you suppose that I should obey you any more than I did Monsieur le
Marechal? When my late master, after telling me to remain in his tent,
found me behind him in the cannon's smoke, he made no complaint, because
he had a fresh horse ready when his own was killed, and he only scolded
me for a moment in his thoughts; but, truly, during the forty years I
served him, I never saw him act as you have in the fortnight I have been
with you. Ah!" he added with a sigh, "things are going strangely; and if
we continue thus, there's no knowing what will be the end of it."

"But knowest thou, Grandchamp, that these scoundrels had made the
crucifix red hot?--a thing at which no honest man would have been less
enraged than I."

"Except Monsieur le Marechal, your father, who would not have done at
all what you have done, Monsieur."

"What, then, would he have done?"

"He would very quietly have let this cure be burned by the other cures,
and would have said to me, 'Grandchamp, see that my horses have oats,
and let no one steal them'; or, 'Grandchamp, take care that the rain
does not rust