is was actually quiet. The people went
peacefully to their daily work; the lowest classes retired to their
dens, and one could take a morning walk without meeting a howling mob.
Every one repeated the same tale. Mazarin would never return; Conde
was master, and the stupid Fronde was at an end.

Madame Coutance had returned to Paris with her niece, and occasionally
I spent an hour at her house, where she treated me with much kindness;
only she would insist that I was a silly fellow not to abandon a lost
cause.

For a time it really seemed that Conde's triumph was assured, but soon
I began to hear whispers that all was not right in the Palais Royal.
Bits of gossip picked up by the Englishman, and a word or two from Le
Tellier, made me imagine that Conde's position was less safe than he
imagined.

Sitting alone one evening by the open window of my room, I noticed,
approaching the house, a handsomely-dressed gallant, holding in his
hand a naked sword on which were some fresh blood-stains. He, glanced
up at me, smiling, and I, recognising Raoul, ran hastily to meet him.

"Why, it is as dangerous to visit you as a deposed favourite!" he cried
merrily.

"You come in such gorgeous plumage. Many a man in the Rue des Catonnes
would cheerfully risk his life for the value of your gold braid. But,"
glancing at the blood on his sword, "you have discovered that!"

"Yes, there is a poor wretch farther down nursing his arm and grumbling
frightfully at his own clumsiness; but I threw him a pistole or two to
buy some ointment. So you have not followed the Cardinal?"

"No! I am waiting here till his return," and we went upstairs
together, Raoul laughing heartily at what he called my impudence.

He did not refer to our last meeting at the Palais Royal, but chatted
gaily about his sudden visit to Havre, though, of course, without
revealing to me the secrets of his party.

"Well," I remarked presently, "now that the wretched squabble is over,
what have you gained by it?"

"Over?" he cried in astonishment; "come to the Pont Neuf and see for
yourself what is going on. The cards have been shuffled again, and we
are playing the game with different partners. Conde has gone too far,
and Dame Anne will have none of him. He claims every office in the
State for his friends, and three-fourths of the country for himself.
Unless he is put down, as Mazarin says, there will be nothing left but
to carry him to Rheims."

"Then you hav