as a covering for disorder. All Paris was
in an uproar. Men with long beards, carrying torches, measures of wine,
and two drinking-cups, which they knocked together with a great noise,
went along, arm in arm, shouting in chorus with rude voices an old round
of the League:

"Reprenons la danse;
Allons, c'est assez.
Le printemps commence;
Les rois sont passes.

"Prenons quelque treve;
Nous sommes lasses.
Les rois de la feve
Nous ont harasses.

"Allons, Jean du Mayne,
Les rois sont passes.

"Les rois de la feve
Nous ont harasses.
Allons, Jean du Mayne,
Les rois sont passes."

The frightful bands who howled forth these words traversed the Quais and
the Pont-Neuf, squeezing against the high houses, which then covered the
latter, the peaceful citizens who were led there by simple curiosity. Two
young men, wrapped in cloaks, thus thrown one against the other,
recognized each other by the light of a torch placed at the foot of the
statue of Henri IV, which had been lately raised.

"What! still at Paris?" said Corneille to Milton. "I thought you were in
London."

"Hear you the people, Monsieur? Do you hear them? What is this ominous
chorus,

'Les rois sont passes'?"

"That is nothing, Monsieur. Listen to their conversation."

"The parliament is dead," said one of the men; "the nobles are dead. Let
us dance; we are the masters. The old Cardinal is dying. There is no
longer any but the King and ourselves."

"Do you hear that drunken wretch, Monsieur?" asked Corneille. "All our
epoch is in those words of his."

"What! is this the work of the minister who is called great among you,
and even by other nations? I do not understand him."

"I will explain the matter to you presently," answered Corneille. "But
first listen to the concluding part of this letter, which I received
to-day. Draw near this light under the statue of the late King. We are
alone. The crowd has passed. Listen!

"It was by one of those unforeseen circumstances which prevent the
accomplishment of the noblest enterprises that we were not able to
save MM. de Cinq-Mars and De Thou. We might have foreseen that,
prepared for death by long meditation, they would themselves refuse
our aid; but this idea did not occur to any of us. In the
precipitation