Mazarin shrugged his shoulders and taking the queen’s hand led her to the window.

“Look!” he said.

“Well?” said the queen, blinded by her obstinacy.

“Well, what do you see from this window?  If I am not mistaken those are citizens, helmeted and mailed, armed with good muskets, as in the time of the League, and whose eyes are so intently fixed on this window that they will see you if you raise that curtain much; and now come to the other side —­ what do you see?  Creatures of the people, armed with halberds, guarding your doors.  You will see the same at every opening from this palace to which I should lead you.  Your doors are guarded, the airholes of your cellars are guarded, and I could say to you, as that good La Ramee said to me of the Duc de Beaufort, you must be either bird or mouse to get out.”

“He did get out, nevertheless.”

“Do you think of escaping in the same way?”

“I am a prisoner, then?”

“Parbleu!” said Mazarin, “I have been proving it to you this last hour.”

And he quietly resumed his dispatch at the place where he had been interrupted.

Anne, trembling with anger and scarlet with humiliation, left the room, shutting the door violently after her.  Mazarin did not even turn around.  When once more in her own apartment Anne fell into a chair and wept; then suddenly struck with an idea: 

“I am saved!” she exclaimed, rising; “oh, yes! yes!  I know a man who will find the means of taking me from Paris, a man I have too long forgotten.”  Then falling into a reverie, she added, however, with an expression of joy, “Ungrateful woman that I am, for twenty years I have forgotten this man, whom I ought to have made a marechal of France.  My mother-in-law expended gold, caresses, dignities on Concini, who ruined her; the king made Vitry marechal of France for an assassination:  while I have left in obscurity, in poverty, the noble D’Artagnan, who saved me!”

And running to a table, on which were paper, pens and ink, she hastily began to write.

50

The Interview.

It had been D’Artagnan’s practice, ever since the riots, to sleep in the same room as Porthos, and on this eventful morning he was still there, sleeping, and dreaming that a yellow cloud had overspread the sky and was raining gold pieces into his hat, which he held out till it was overflowing with pistoles.  As for Porthos, he dreamed that the panels of his carriage were not capacious enough to contain the armorial bearings he had ordered to be painted on them.  They were both aroused at seven o’clock by the entrance of an unliveried servant, who brought a letter for D’Artagnan.

“From whom?” asked the Gascon.

“From the queen,” replied the servant.

“Ho!” said Porthos, raising himself in his bed; “what does she say?”

D’Artagnan requested the servant to wait in the next room and when the door was closed he sprang up from his bed and read rapidly, whilst Porthos looked at him with starting eyes, not daring to ask a single question.