ff the heads of two Christians, because he is a
butcher by trade? So long as I am his wife, I'll not allow it. I'd
rather--"

"Well, you are wrong!" replied her companions. "What is't to thee whether
the meat he cuts is eaten or not eaten? Why, thou'lt have a hundred
crowns to dress thy three children all in new clothes. Thou'rt lucky to
be the wife of a butcher. Profit, then, 'ma mignonne', by what God sends
thee by the favor of his Eminence."

"Let me alone!" answered the first speaker. "I'll not accept it. I've
seen these fine young gentlemen at the windows. They look as mild as
lambs."

"Well! and are not thy lambs and calves killed?" said Femme le Bon. "What
fortune falls to this little woman! What a pity! especially when it is
from the reverend Capuchin!"

"How horrible is the gayety of the people!" said Olivier d'Entraigues,
unguardedly. All the women heard him, and began to murmur against him.

"Of the people!" said they; "and whence comes this little bricklayer with
his plastered clothes?"

"Ah!" interrupted another, "dost not see that 'tis some gentleman in
disguise? Look at his white hands! He never worked a square; 'tis some
little dandy conspirator. I've a great mind to go and fetch the captain
of the watch to arrest him."

The Abbe de Gondi felt all the danger of this situation, and throwing
himself with an air of anger upon Olivier, and assuming the manners of a
joiner, whose costume and apron he had adopted, he exclaimed, seizing him
by the collar:

"You're just right. 'Tis a little rascal that never works! These two
years that my father's apprenticed him, he has done nothing but comb his
hair to please the girls. Come, get home with you!"

And, striking him with his rule, he drove him through the crowd, and
returned to place himself on another part of the line. After having well
reprimanded the thoughtless page, he asked him for the letter which he
said he had to give to M. de Cinq-Mars when he should have escaped.
Olivier had carried it in his pocket for two months. He gave it him. "It
is from one prisoner to another," said he, "for the Chevalier de jars, on
leaving the Bastille, sent it me from one of his companions in
captivity."

"Ma foi!" said Gondi, "there may be some important secret in it for our
friends. I'll open it. You ought to have thought of it before. Ah, bah!
it is from old Bassompierre. Let us read it.

MY DEAR CHILD: I learn from the depths of the Bastille, where I