plans for my
entertainment. In a strange city to hunt up and dispossess a man like
this of papers which would hang him. A delightful undertaking forsooth!

"But we plan in advance, my dear Captain. We must wait the pleasure of
the King concerning you. We will renew this subject to-morrow."

That night I lodged with Serigny.

CHAPTER VI

LOUIS XIV

Even at this time I remember how nervous I was when I dressed for my
interview with the King. What it was for, or how it might result, I
could form no idea, so I did not trouble myself with vain thinking.

Promptly at ten I presented myself at that famous door which led to the
room where Louis held his morning levee. Already the approaches were
crowded, and the officer on watch was busy examining passes and requests
for admission. Some there were who passed haughtily in without even so
much as a glance at the guard or the crowd which parted obsequiously to
let them through. Most probably favorites of the King, or perchance his
ministers. When he reached me the officer of the guard, noting my
uniform, inquired:

"Captain de Mouret of Louisiana?"

"Yes."

"You are to be admitted, sir," and I found myself ushered immediately
through the opening ranks of Swiss mercenaries into the audience chamber
of the King.

Louis no longer held his levees in the great vaulted chamber into which I
was first shown, but in a smaller and more sombre room, that of de
Maintenon. The character and dress of those present reflected with a
chameleon's fidelity the change in His Majesty's habits. Madame sat near
the King, working upon a piece of tapestry which, when she was interested
in what went on, lay idle in her lap. Behind her chair stood the
sour-visaged Jesuit confessor, Letellier.

Death, which spared not even the Bourbon, had taken away the Dauphin and
his son; leaving as the King's successor an infant yet in his cradle.
This embittered every thought of the King's declining years, made him
gloomy, petulant and querulous. And yet there were many men still about
him capable of upholding the dignity of the throne. I heard announced,
one after the other, Grand Marshal Villars, lately placed in command of
all the armies of France; the Duke of Savoy, a famous soldier, but a
deserter from the English; the brothers de Noailles, one bearing a
Marshal's baton, the other, cold, cynical, austere, robed in churchly
garments, Archbishop of Paris. There were Villeroi, de Tou