the duke was to pass all his life at Vincennes, he was afraid of his prisoner attempting suicide.  A fortnight afterward the duke, going to the tennis court, found two rows of trees about the size of his little finger planted by the roadside; he asked what they were for and was told that they were to shade him from the sun on some future day.  One morning the gardener went to him and told him, as if to please him, that he was going to plant a bed of asparagus for his especial use.  Now, since, as every one knows, asparagus takes four years in coming to perfection, this civility infuriated Monsieur de Beaufort.

At last his patience was exhausted.  He assembled his keepers, and notwithstanding his well-known difficulty of utterance, addressed them as follows: 

“Gentlemen! will you permit a grandson of Henry IV. to be overwhelmed with insults and ignominy?

“Odds fish! as my grandfather used to say, I once reigned in Paris! do you know that?  I had the king and Monsieur the whole of one day in my care.  The queen at that time liked me and called me the most honest man in the kingdom.  Gentlemen and citizens, set me free; I shall go to the Louvre and strangle Mazarin.  You shall be my body-guard.  I will make you all captains, with good pensions!  Odds fish!  On! march forward!”

But eloquent as he might be, the eloquence of the grandson of Henry IV. did not touch those hearts of stone; not one man stirred, so Monsieur de Beaufort was obliged to be satisfied with calling them all kinds of rascals underneath the sun.

Sometimes, when Monsieur de Chavigny paid him a visit, the duke used to ask him what he should think if he saw an army of Parisians, all fully armed, appear at Vincennes to deliver him from prison.

“My lord,” answered De Chavigny, with a low bow, “I have on the ramparts twenty pieces of artillery and in my casemates thirty thousand guns.  I should bombard the troops till not one grain of gunpowder was unexploded.”

“Yes, but after you had fired off your thirty thousand guns they would take the donjon; the donjon being taken, I should be obliged to let them hang you —­ at which I should be most unhappy, certainly.”

And in his turn the duke bowed low to Monsieur de Chavigny.

“For myself, on the other hand, my lord,” returned the governor, “when the first rebel should pass the threshold of my postern doors I should be obliged to kill you with my own hand, since you were confided peculiarly to my care and as I am obliged to give you up, dead or alive.”

And once more he bowed low before his highness.

These bitter-sweet pleasantries lasted ten minutes, sometimes longer, but always finished thus: 

Monsieur de Chavigny, turning toward the door, used to call out:  “Halloo!  La Ramee!”

La Ramee came into the room.

“La Ramee, I recommend Monsieur le Duc to you, particularly; treat him as a man of his rank and family ought to be treated; that is, never leave him alone an instant.”