, thinking that the coadjutor was
about to speak of the cries, "Down with Mazarin," and pleased with
Gondy's suppression of this fact, he said with his sweetest voice and
his most gracious expression:

"Madame, credit the coadjutor, who is one of the most able politicians
we have; the first available cardinal's hat seems to belong already to
his noble brow."

"Ah! how much you have need of me, cunning rogue!" thought Gondy.

("And what will he promise us?" said D'Artagnan. "Peste, if he is giving
away hats like that, Porthos, let us look out and both demand a regiment
to-morrow. Corbleu! let the civil war last but one year and I will have
a constable's sword gilt for me."

"And for me?" put in Porthos.

"For you? I will give you the baton of the Marechal de la Meilleraie,
who does not seem to be much in favor just now.")

"And so, sir," said the queen, "you are seriously afraid of a public
tumult."

"Seriously," said Gondy, astonished at not having further advanced;
"I fear that when the torrent has broken its embankment it will cause
fearful destruction."

"And I," said the queen, "think that in such a case other embankments
should be raised to oppose it. Go; I will reflect."

Gondy looked at Mazarin, astonished, and Mazarin approached the queen
to speak to her, but at this moment a frightful tumult arose from the
square of the Palais Royal.

Gondy smiled, the queen's color rose and Mazarin grew even paler.

"What is that again?" he asked.

At this moment Comminges rushed into the room.

"Pardon, your majesty," he cried, "but the people have dashed the
sentinels against the gates and they are now forcing the doors; what are
your commands?"

"Listen, madame," said Gondy.

The moaning of waves, the noise of thunder, the roaring of a volcano,
cannot be compared with the tempest of cries heard at that moment.

"What are my commands?" said the queen.

"Yes, for time presses."

"How many men have you about the Palais Royal?"

"Six hundred."

"Place a hundred around the king and with the remainder sweep away this
mob for me."

"Madame," cried Mazarin, "what are you about?"

"Go!" said the queen.

Comminges went out with a soldier's passive obedience.

At this moment a monstrous battering was heard. One of the gates began
to yield.

"Oh! madame," cried Mazarin, "you have ruined us all--the king, yourself
and me."

At this cry from the soul of the frightened cardinal, Anne became
alarmed in