promised to conduct her there; but on the receipt of
this letter his determination was changed and he has
ordered the council to meet at noon.

"At three o'clock the regent will pay his majesty a
visit at the Tuileries. He has asked for a tete-a-tete,
for he is beginning to be impatient at the obstinacy of
the Marechal de Villeroy, who will always be present at
the interviews between the regent and his majesty.
Report says that if this obstinacy continue, it will be
the worse for the marshal.

"At six o'clock, the regent, the Chevalier de Simiane,
and the Chevalier de Ravanne, will sup with Madame de
Sabran."

"Ah, ah!" said D'Harmental; and he read the last sentence, weighing
every word.

"Well, what do you think of this paragraph?" asked the abbe.

The chevalier jumped from his bed, put on his dressing-gown, took from
his drawer a crimson ribbon, a hammer and a nail, and having opened his
window (not without throwing a stolen glance at that of his neighbor),
he nailed the ribbon on to the outer wall.

"There is my answer," said he.

"What the devil does that mean?"

"That means," said D'Harmental, "that you may go and tell Madame de
Maine that I hope this evening to fulfill my promise to her. And now go
away, my dear abbe, and do not come back for two hours, for I expect
some one whom it would be better you should not meet."

The abbe, who was prudence itself, did not wait to be told twice, but
pressed the chevalier's hand and left him. Twenty minutes afterward
Captain Roquefinette entered.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RUE DES BONS ENFANTS.

The evening of the same day, which was Sunday, toward eight o'clock, at
the moment when a considerable group of men and women, assembled round a
street singer who was playing at the same time the cymbals with his
knees and the tambourine with his hands, obstructed the entrance to the
Rue de Valois, a musketeer and two of the light horse descended a back
staircase of the Palais Royal, and advanced toward the Passage du Lycee,
which, as every one knows, opened on to that street; but seeing the
crowd which barred the way, the three soldiers stopped and appeared to
take council. The result of their deliberation was doubtless that they
must take another route, for the musketeer, setting the example of a new
maneuver, threaded the Cour des Fontaines, turned the corner of the Rue
des Bons Enfants, and walking