ver some closely written notes, carefully drawn up, which will
thoroughly acquaint your highness with the different persons who compose
and will compose your court."

"I perused all the notes."

"Attentively?"

"I know them by heart."

"And understood them? Pardon me, but I may venture to ask that question
of a poor, abandoned captive of the Bastille. It will not be requisite
in a week's time to further question a mind like yours, when you will
then be in full possession of liberty and power."

"Interrogate me, then, and I will be a scholar repeating his lesson to
his master."

"We will begin with your family, monseigneur."

"My mother, Anne of Austria! all her sorrows, her painful malady. Oh! I
know her--I know her."

"Your second brother?" asked Aramis, bowing.

"To these notes," replied the prince, "you have added portraits so
faithfully painted, that I am able to recognize the persons whose
characters, manners, and history, you have so carefully portrayed.
Monsieur, my brother, is a fine, dark young man, with a pale face; he
does not love his wife, Henrietta, whom I, Louis XIV., loved a little,
and still flirt with, even although she made me weep on the day she
wished to dismiss Mademoiselle de la Valliere from her service in
disgrace."

"You will have to be careful with regard to watchfulness of the latter,"
said Aramis; "she is sincerely attached to the actual king. The eyes of
a woman who loves are not easily deceived."

"She is fair, has blue eyes, whose affectionate gaze will reveal her
identity. She halts slightly in her gait; she writes a letter every day,
to which I shall have to send an answer by M. de Saint-Aignan.

"Do you know the latter?"

"As if I saw him, and I know the last verses he composed for me, as well
as those I composed in answer to his."

"Very good. Do you know your ministers?"

"Colbert, an ugly, dark-browed man, but intelligent enough; his hair
covering his forehead, a large, heavy, full head; the mortal enemy of M.
Fouquet."

"As for the latter, we need not disturb ourselves about him."

"No; because necessarily you will require me to exile him, I suppose?"

Aramis, struck with admiration at the remark, said, "You will become
very great, monseigneur."

"You see," added the prince, "that I know my lesson by heart, and with
Heaven's assistance, and yours afterward, I shall seldom go wrong."

"You have still a very awkward pair of eyes to deal with, monseigneur."