the
Saone. Against the scaffold was placed a short ladder of eight
rounds, in the direction of the Dames de St. Pierre."

Nothing had transpired in the town as to the name of the prisoners. The
inaccessible walls of the fortress let none enter or leave but at night,
and the deep dungeons had sometimes confined father and son for years
together, four feet apart from each other, without their even being aware
of the vicinity. The surprise was extreme at these striking preparations,
and the crowd collected, not knowing whether for a fete or for an
execution.

This same secrecy which the agents of the minister had strictly preserved
was also carefully adhered to by the conspirators, for their heads
depended on it.

Montresor, Fontrailles, the Baron de Beauvau, Olivier d'Entraigues,
Gondi, the Comte du Lude, and the Advocate Fournier, disguised as
soldiers, workmen, and morris-dancers, armed with poniards under their
clothes, had dispersed amid the crowd more than five hundred gentlemen
and domestics, disguised like themselves. Horses were ready on the road
to Italy, and boats upon the Rhone had been previously engaged. The young
Marquis d'Effiat, elder brother of Cinq-Mars, dressed as a Carthusian,
traversed the crowd, without ceasing, between the Place des Terreaux and
the little house in which his mother and sister were concealed with the
Presidente de Pontac, the sister of the unfortunate De Thou. He reassured
them, gave them from time to time a ray of hope, and returned to the
conspirators to satisfy himself that each was prepared for action.

Each soldier forming the line had at his side a man ready to poniard him.

The vast crowd, heaped together behind the line of guards, pushed them
forward, passed their lines, and made them lose ground. Ambrosio, the
Spanish servant whom Cinq-Mars had saved, had taken charge of the captain
of the pikemen, and, disguised as a Catalonian musician, had commenced a
dispute with him, pretending to be determined not to cease playing the
hurdy-gurdy.

Every one was at his post.

The Abbe de Gondi, Olivier d'Entraigues, and the Marquis d'Effiat were in
the midst of a group of fish-women and oyster-wenches, who were disputing
and bawling, abusing one of their number younger and more timid than her
masculine companions. The brother of Cinq-Mars approached to listen to
their quarrel.

"And why," said she to the others, "would you have Jean le Roux, who is
an honest man, cut o