spered in the court that the king had seen and fallen in love with
his mistress's younger sister, Susette d'Entragues, whose home at
Malesherbes lay but three leagues from Fontainebleau, on the edge of the
forest. This placed the king's imprudence in a stronger light, for he
had scarcely in France a more dangerous enemy than her brother Auvergne;
nor had the immense sums which he had settled on the elder sister
satisfied the mean avarice or conciliated the brutish hostility of her
father.

Apprised of all this, I saw that Father Cotton had desired to
communicate it to me. But his motive I found it less easy to divine. It
might have been a wish to balk this new passion through my interference,
and at the same time to expose me to the risk of his Majesty's anger.
Or it might simply have been a desire to avert danger from the king's
person. At any rate, constant to my rule of ever preferring my master's
interest to his favour, I sent for Maignan, my equerry, and bade him
have an equipage ready at dawn.

Accordingly at that hour next morning, attended only by La Trape, with
a groom, a page, and four Swiss, I started, giving out that I was bound
for Sully to inspect that demesne, which had formerly been the property
of my family, and of which the refusal had just been offered to me.
Under cover of this destination I was enabled to reach La Ferte Alais
unsuspected. There, pretending that the motion of the coach fatigued me,
I mounted the led horse, without which I never travelled, and bidding La
Trape accompany me, gave orders to the others to follow at their leisure
to Pethiviers, where I proposed to stay the night.

La Ferte Alais, on the borders of the forest, is some five leagues
westward of Fontainebleau, and as far north of Malesherbes, with which
last it is connected by a highroad. Having disclosed my intentions to La
Trape, however, I presently left this road and struck into a path which
promised to conduct us in the right direction. But the denseness of
the undergrowth, and the huge piles of gray rocks which lie everywhere
strewn about the forest, made it difficult to keep for any time in a
straight line. After being two hours in the saddle we concluded that we
had lost our way, and were confirmed in this on reaching a clearing,
and seeing before us a small inn, which La Trape recognised as standing
about a league and a half on the forest side of Malesherbes.

We still had ample time to reach Fontainebleau by nigh