chelieu's creature, my lord. I warn you, however,
his services will cost you something. The cardinal was lavish to his
underlings."

"Yes, yes, Guitant," said Mazarin; "Richelieu was a great man, a very
great man, but he had that defect. Thanks, Guitant; I shall benefit by
your advice this very evening."

Here they separated and bidding adieu to Guitant in the court of the
Palais Royal, Mazarin approached an officer who was walking up and down
within that inclosure.

It was D'Artagnan, who was waiting for him.

"Come hither," said Mazarin in his softest voice; "I have an order to
give you."

D'Artagnan bent low and following the cardinal up the secret staircase,
soon found himself in the study whence they had first set out.

The cardinal seated himself before his bureau and taking a sheet of
paper wrote some lines upon it, whilst D'Artagnan stood imperturbable,
without showing either impatience or curiosity. He was like a soldierly
automaton, or rather, like a magnificent marionette.

The cardinal folded and sealed his letter.

"Monsieur d'Artagnan," he said, "you are to take this dispatch to the
Bastile and bring back here the person it concerns. You must take a
carriage and an escort, and guard the prisoner with the greatest care."

D'Artagnan took the letter, touched his hat with his hand, turned round
upon his heel like a drill-sergeant, and a moment afterward was heard,
in his dry and monotonous tone, commanding "Four men and an escort, a
carriage and a horse." Five minutes afterward the wheels of the carriage
and the horses' shoes were heard resounding on the pavement of the
courtyard.

3. Dead Animosities.

D'Artagnan arrived at the Bastile just as it was striking half-past
eight. His visit was announced to the governor, who, on hearing that he
came from the cardinal, went to meet him and received him at the top of
the great flight of steps outside the door. The governor of the Bastile
was Monsieur du Tremblay, the brother of the famous Capuchin, Joseph,
that fearful favorite of Richelieu's, who went by the name of the Gray
Cardinal.

During the period that the Duc de Bassompierre passed in the
Bastile--where he remained for twelve long years--when his companions,
in their dreams of liberty, said to each other: "As for me, I shall go
out of the prison at such a time," and another, at such and such a time,
the duke used to answer, "As for me, gentlemen, I shall leave only when
Monsieur du