his following. 'First, that you let me keep my arms until we
reach the gate-house, I giving you my parole to come with you quietly.
That is number one.'

'Well,' the Provost-Marshal said more civilly, 'I have no objection to
that.'

'Secondly, that you do not allow your men to break into my lodgings. I
will come out quietly, and so an end. Your order does not direct you to
sack my goods.'

'Tut, tut!' he replied; 'I want, you to come out. I do not want to go
in.'

'Then draw your men back to the stairs,' I said. 'And if you keep terms
with me, I will uphold you to-morrow, For your orders will certainly
bring you into trouble. M. de Retz, who procured it this morning, is
away, you know. M. de Villequier may be gone to-morrow. But depend upon
it, M. de Rambouillet will be here!'

The remark was well timed and to the point. It startled the man as much
as I had hoped it would. Without raising any objection he ordered his
men to fall back and guard the stairs; and I on my side began to undo
the fastenings of the door.

The matter was not to be so easily concluded, however; for Bruhl's
rascals, in obedience, no doubt, to a sign given by their leader, who
stood with Fresnoy on the upper flight of stairs, refused to withdraw;
and even hustled the Provost-Marshal's men when the latter would have
obeyed the order. The officer, already heated by delay, replied by
laying about him with his staff, and in a twinkling there seemed to
be every prospect of a very pretty MELEE, the end of which it was
impossible to foresee.

Reflecting, however, that if Bruhl's men routed their opponents our
position might be made worse rather than better, I did not act on my
first impulse, which was to see the matter out where I was. Instead, I
seized the opportunity to let myself out, while Simon fastened the door
behind me. The Provost-Marshal was engaged at the moment in a wordy
dispute with Fresnoy; whose villainous countenance, scarred by the wound
which I had given him at Chize, and flushed with passion, looked its
worst by the light of the single torch which remained. In one respect
the villain had profited by his present patronage, for he was decked out
in a style of tawdry magnificence. But I have always remarked this
about dress, that while a shabby exterior does not entirely obscure a
gentleman, the extreme of fashion is powerless to gild a knave.

Seeing me on a sudden at the Provost's elbow, he recoiled with a change
of countenan