“The day is your own,” said the Capuchin calmly; “you are now face to face with your enemies, and you know all the joints in their armour.  Every blow may be rendered a mortal one.”

Richelieu smiled.  The paroxysm of fury had subsided, and he was once more cold, and stern, and self-possessed.  “We lose time,” he said, “and I have yet to play the courtier.  Are my robes ready?”

“All is prepared,” quietly replied his companion, as he withdrew from the closet, where he shortly reappeared laden with the sumptuous costume of his friend and patron.  A few minutes sufficed for the necessary metamorphosis; the citizen-raiment was cast aside, the crimson drapery flung over the shoulders of its owner, the jewelled cross adjusted on his breast; and before the detected nobles had recovered from their consternation, the Cardinal was solemnly traversing the crowded halls surrounded by the adulation of the assembled Court.  As he advanced to pay his respects to the sovereigns, he encountered Bassompierre, whom he greeted with a smile of more than usual cordiality; and the Duc de Guise, to whom he addressed a few words of courteous recognition; but the one felt that the smile was a stab, and the other that the greeting was a menace.

History has taught us the justice of those forebodings.

And still the festival went on; the fairest women of the Court fluttered and glittered like gilded butterflies from place to place; princes and nobles, attired in all the gorgeous magnificence of the time, formed a living mosaic of splendour on the marble floors; floating perfumes escaped from jewelled cassolettes; light laughter was blent with music and with song; the dance sped merrily; and heaps of gold rapidly exchanged owners at the play tables.  Nor was the scene less dazzling without; the environs of the Louvre were brilliantly illuminated; fireworks ascended from floating rafts anchored in the centre of the river; and troops of comedians, conjurers, and soothsayers thronged all the approaches to the palace.  It was truly a regal fete; and when the dawn began to gleam, pale and calm through the open casements, a hundred voices echoed the parting salutation of the Cardinal-Minister to his royal host, as he said, bowing profoundly, “None save yourself, Sire, could have afforded to his guests so vivid a glimpse of fairy-land as we have had to-night.  Not a shade of gloom, nor a care for the future, can have intruded itself in such a scene of enchantment.  I appeal to those around me.  How say you, M. de Guise? and you, M. de Bassompierre?  Shall we not depart hence with light hearts and tranquil spirits, grateful for so many hours of unalloyed and almost unequalled happiness?”

The silence of the two nobles to whom his Eminence had thus addressed himself fortunately passed unobserved amid the chorus of assenting admiration which burst forth on all sides; and with this final strain of the moral rack the Cardinal took his leave of the two foredoomed victims of his vengeance.