king much and saying little.

"Ho! ho!" said he, "good advice, advice of a friend. I, too, would give
up that good Monsieur Broussel, dead or alive, and all would be at an
end."

"If you yield him dead, all will indeed be at an end, my lord, but quite
otherwise than you mean."

"Did I say 'dead or alive?'" replied Mazarin. "It was only a way of
speaking. You know I am not familiar with the French language, which
you, monsieur le coadjuteur, both speak and write so well."

("This is a council of state," D'Artagnan remarked to Porthos; "but we
held better ones at La Rochelle, with Athos and Aramis."

"At the Saint Gervais bastion," said Porthos.

"There and elsewhere.")

The coadjutor let the storm pass over his head and resumed, still with
the same tranquillity:

"Madame, if the opinion I have submitted to you does not please you it
is doubtless because you have better counsels to follow. I know too well
the wisdom of the queen and that of her advisers to suppose that they
will leave the capital long in trouble that may lead to a revolution."

"Thus, then, it is your opinion," said Anne of Austria, with a sneer
and biting her lips with rage, "that yesterday's riot, which to-day is
already a rebellion, to-morrow may become a revolution?"

"Yes, madame," replied the coadjutor, gravely.

"But if I am to believe you, sir, the people seem to have thrown off all
restraint."

"It is a bad year for kings," said Gondy, shaking his head; "look at
England, madame."

"Yes; but fortunately we have no Oliver Cromwell in France," replied the
queen.

"Who knows?" said Gondy; "such men are like thunderbolts--one recognizes
them only when they have struck."

Every one shuddered and there was a moment of silence, during which the
queen pressed her hand to her side, evidently to still the beatings of
her heart.

("Porthos," murmured D'Artagnan, "look well at that priest."

"Yes," said Porthos, "I see him. What then?"

"Well, he is a man."

Porthos looked at D'Artagnan in astonishment. Evidently he did not
understand his meaning.)

"Your majesty," continued the coadjutor, pitilessly, "is about to take
such measures as seem good to you, but I foresee that they will be
violent and such as will still further exasperate the rioters."

"In that case, you, monsieur le coadjuteur, who have such power
over them and are at the same time friendly to us," said the queen,
ironically, "will quiet them by bestowing your blessin