rmit me first to repeat what I have
seen. M. de Bruhl is without, and I counted six men whom I believe to be
his following. They are ruffians ripe for any crime; and I implore your
Majesty rather to submit to a short imprisonment--'

I paused struck dumb on that word, confounded by the passion which
lightened in the king's face. My ill-chosen expression had indeed
applied the spark to his wrath. Predisposed to suspicion by a hundred
treacheries, he forgot the perils outside in the one idea which on the
instant possessed his mind; that I would confine his person, and had
brought him hither for no other purpose. He glared round him with eyes
full of rage and fear, and his trembling lips breathed rather than spoke
the word 'Imprison?'

Unluckily, a trifling occurrence added at this moment to his disorder,
and converted it into frenzy. Someone outside fell heavily against the
door; this, causing madame to utter a low shriek, seemed to shatter the
last remnant of the king's self-control. Stamping his foot on the floor,
he cried to me with the utmost wildness to open the door--by which I had
hitherto kept my place.

But, wrongly or rightly, I was still determined to put off opening it;
and I raised my hands with the intention of making a last appeal to
him. He misread the gesture, and retreating a step, with the greatest
suddenness whipped out his sword, and in a moment had the point at my
breast, and his wrist drawn back to thrust.

It has always been my belief that he would not have dealt the blow,
but that the mere touch of the hilt, awaking the courage which he
undoubtedly possessed, and which did not desert him in his last moments,
would have recalled him to himself. But the opportunity was not
given him, for while the blade yet quivered, and I stood motionless,
controlling myself by an effort, my knee half bent and my eyes on his,
Mademoiselle de la Vire sprang forward at his back, and with a loud
scream clutched his elbow. The king, surprised, and ignorant who held
him, flung up his point wildly, and striking the lamp above his head
with his blade, shattered it in an instant, bringing down the pottery
with a crash and reducing the room to darkness; while the screams of
the women, and the knowledge that we had a madman among us, peopled, the
blackness with a hundred horrors.

Fearing above all for mademoiselle, I made my way as soon as I could
recover my wits to the embers of the fire, and regardless of the king's