ide, on the contrary, were darkness, silence, and
solitude. When once the doors were closed, there was no longer an
appearance of royalty. All the servitors had by degrees retired.
Monsieur le Prince had sent to know if his majesty required his
attendance; and on the customary "_No_" of the lieutenant of musketeers,
who was habituated to the question and the reply, all appeared to sink
into the arms of sleep, as if in the dwelling of a good citizen.

And yet it was possible to hear from the side of the house occupied by
the young king the music of the banquet, and to see the windows of the
great hall richly illuminated.

Ten minutes after his installation in his apartment, Louis XIV. had been
able to learn, by movement much more distinguished than marked his own
leaving, the departure of the cardinal, who, in his turn, sought his
bedroom, accompanied by a large escort of ladies and gentlemen.

Besides, to perceive this movement, he had nothing to do but look out at
his window, the shutters of which had not been closed.

His eminence crossed the court, conducted by Monsieur, who himself held
a flambeau; then followed the queen-mother, to whom Madame familiarly
gave her arm; and both walked chatting away, like two old friends.

Behind these two couples filed nobles, ladies, pages and officers; the
flambeaux gleamed over the whole court, like the moving reflections of
a conflagration. Then the noise of steps and voices became lost in the
upper floors of the castle.

No one was then thinking of the king, who, leaning on his elbow at his
window, had sadly seen pass away all that light, and heard that noise
die off--no, not one, if it was not that unknown of the hostelry _des
Medici_, whom we have seen go out, enveloped in his cloak.

He had come straight up to the castle, and had, with his melancholy
countenance, wandered round and round the palace, from which the
people had not yet departed; and finding that on one guarded the great
entrance, or the porch, seeing that the soldiers of Monsieur were
fraternizing with the royal soldiers--that is to say, swallowing
Beaugency at discretion, or rather indiscretion--the unknown penetrated
through the crowd, then ascended to the court, and came to the landing
of the staircase leading to the cardinal's apartment.

What, according to all probability, induced him to direct his steps that
way, was the splendor of the flambeaux, and the busy air of the pages
and domestics. But h