d was intimately acquainted with the forest. I
should have carried this information at once to my master, but I learned
that he had already started, and thus baffled, and believing that his
affection for Mademoiselle d'Entragues, if not for her sister, would
lead him to act with undue leniency, I conceived and arranged a plan of
my own.

About noon, therefore, I set out as if for a ride, attended by La Trape
only, but at some distance from the palace we were joined by Boisrose,
whom I had bidden to be at that point well armed and mounted. Thus
reinforced, for the Gascon was still strong, and in courage a Grillon,
I proceeded to Malesherbes by a circuitous route which brought me within
sight of the gates about the middle of the afternoon. I then halted
under cover of the trees, and waited until I saw the king, attended by
several ladies and gentlemen, and followed by eight troopers, issue from
the chateau. His Majesty was walking, his horse being led behind him;
and seeing this I rode out and approached the party as if I had that
moment arrived to meet the king.

It would not ill become me on this occasion to make some reflections on
the hollowness of court life, which has seldom been better exemplified
than in the scene before me. The sun was low, but its warm beams,
falling aslant on the gaily dressed group at the gates and on the
flowered terraces and gray walls behind them, seemed to present a
picture at once peaceful and joyous. Yet I knew that treachery and death
were lurking in the midst, and it was only by an effort that, as I rode
up, I could make answer to the thousand obliging things with which I was
greeted, and of which not the least polite were said by M. d'Entragues
and his son. I took pains to observe Mademoiselle Susette, a beautiful
girl not out of her teens, but noways comparable, as it seemed to me, in
expression and vivacity, with her famous sister. She was walking
beside the king, her hands full of flowers, and her face flushed with
excitement and timidity, and I came quickly to the conclusion that she
knew nothing of what was intended by her family, who, having made the
one sister the means of gratifying their avarice, were now baiting the
trap of their revenge with the other.

Henry parted from her at length, and mounted his horse amid a ripple of
laughter and compliments, D'Entragues holding the stirrup and his son
the cloak. I observed that the latter, as I had expected, was prepared
to accom