"if you are not the devil in person,
you are at least one of his most intimate acquaintances."

"Oh, no! I am a poor fellow who goes his own quiet way, and who, as he
goes, looks high and low, right and left, that is all. Look, there is a
ray of spring, the first, which knocks humbly at your window, and you do
not open it: one would suppose you were afraid of being seen. Ah,
pardon! I did not know that, when your window opened, another must
close."

"My dear abbe, you are full of wit," replied D'Harmental, "but terribly
indiscreet; so much so, that, if you were a musketeer instead of an
abbe, I should quarrel with you."

"And why? Because I wish to open you a path to glory, fortune, and,
perhaps, love? It would be monstrous ingratitude."

"Well, let us be friends, abbe," said D'Harmental, offering his hand,
"and I shall not be sorry to have some news."

"Of what?"

"How do I know? Of the Rue des Bons Enfants, where there has been a
great deal going on, I believe; of the Arsenal, where, I believe, Madame
de Maine has given a soiree; and even of the regent, who, if I may
believe a dream I had, came back to the Palais Royal very late and
rather agitated."

"All has gone well. The noise of the Rue des Bons Enfants, if there were
any, is quite calm this morning; Madame de Maine has as much gratitude
for those whom important affairs kept away from the Arsenal as she has
contempt for those who were there; finally, the regent, dreaming last
night, as usual, that he was king of France, has already forgotten that
he was nearly the prisoner of the king of Spain. Now we must begin
again."

"Ah, pardon, abbe," said D'Harmental; "but, with your permission, it is
the turn of the others. I shall not be sorry to rest a little, myself."

"Ah, that goes badly with the news I bring you."

"What news?"

"It was decided last night that you should leave for Brittany this
morning."

"For Brittany!--and what to do there?"

"You will know when you are there."

"And if I do not wish to go?"

"You will reflect, and go just the same."

"And on what shall I reflect?"

"That it would be the act of a madman to interrupt an enterprise near
its end for a love only at its beginning. To abandon the interests of a
princess of the blood to gain the good graces of a grisette."

"Abbe!" said D'Harmental.

"Oh, we must not get angry, my dear chevalier; we must reason! You
engaged voluntarily in the affair we have in hand, and you prom