a great politician and therein
shone his vast superiority over me. I am a straightforward, simple man;
that's my great disadvantage. I am of a frankness of character quite
French."

Rochefort bit his lips in order to prevent a smile.

"Now to the point. I want friends; I want faithful servants. When I
say I want, I mean the queen wants them. I do nothing without her
commands--pray understand that; not like Monsieur de Richelieu, who went
on just as he pleased. So I shall never be a great man, as he was, but
to compensate for that, I shall be a good man, Monsieur de Rochefort,
and I hope to prove it to you."

Rochefort knew well the tones of that soft voice, in which sounded
sometimes a sort of gentle lisp, like the hissing of young vipers.

"I am disposed to believe your eminence," he replied; "though I have had
but little evidence of that good-nature of which your eminence speaks.
Do not forget that I have been five years in the Bastile and that no
medium of viewing things is so deceptive as the grating of a prison."

"Ah, Monsieur de Rochefort! have I not told you already that I had
nothing to do with that? The queen--cannot you make allowances for
the pettishness of a queen and a princess? But that has passed away as
suddenly as it came, and is forgotten."

"I can easily suppose, sir, that her majesty has forgotten it amid the
fetes and the courtiers of the Palais Royal, but I who have passed those
years in the Bastile----"

"Ah! mon Dieu! my dear Monsieur de Rochefort! do you absolutely think
that the Palais Royal is the abode of gayety? No. We have had great
annoyances there. As for me, I play my game squarely, fairly, and above
board, as I always do. Let us come to some conclusion. Are you one of
us, Monsieur de Rochefort?"

"I am very desirous of being so, my lord, but I am totally in the dark
about everything. In the Bastile one talks politics only with soldiers
and jailers, and you have not an idea, my lord, how little is known
of what is going on by people of that sort; I am of Monsieur de
Bassompierre's party. Is he still one of the seventeen peers of France?"

"He is dead, sir; a great loss. His devotion to the queen was boundless;
men of loyalty are scarce."

"I think so, forsooth," said Rochefort, "and when you find any of them,
you march them off to the Bastile. However, there are plenty in the
world, but you don't look in the right direction for them, my lord."

"Indeed! explain to me. Ah! m