“My faith! but this has been a day,” he murmured, gazing wistfully at his ragged nails.  “Till I entered this tub there was nothing but lead in my veins, nothing but marble on my bones.  Look at those boots, Breton, lad; a spur gone, the soles loose, the heels cracked.  And that cloak!  The mud on the skirts is a week old.  And that scabbard was new when I left Paris.  When I came up I looked like a swashbuckler in one of Scudery’s plays.  I let no one see me.  Indeed, I doubt if any would have recognized me.  But a man can not ride from Rome to Paris, after having ridden from Paris to Rome, changing neither his clothes nor his horse, without losing some particle of his fastidiousness, and, body of Bacchus!  I have lost no small particle of mine.”

“Ah, Monsieur Paul,” said the lackey, hiding the cast-off clothing in the closet, “I am that glad to see you safe and sound again!”

“Your own face is welcome, lad.  What weather I have seen!” wringing his mustache and royal.  “And Heaven forfend that another such ride falls my lot.”  He smiled at the ruddy heap in the fireplace.

What a ride, indeed!  For nearly two weeks he had ridden over hills and mountains, through valleys and gorges, access deep and shallow streams, sometimes beneath the sun, sometimes beneath the moon or the stars, sometimes beneath the flying black canopies of midnight storms, always and ever toward Paris.  He had been harried by straggling Spaniards; he had drawn his sword three times in unavoidable tavern brawls; he had been robbed of his purse; he had even pawned his signet-ring for a night’s lodging:  all because Mazarin had asked a question which only the pope could answer.

Paris at last!—­Paris the fanciful, the illogical, the changeable, the wholly delightful Paris!  He knew his Paris well, did the Chevalier.  He had been absent thirty days, and on the way in from Fontainebleau, where he had spent the preceding night at the expense of his signet-ring, he had wondered what changes had taken place among the exiles and favorites during this time.  What if the Grande Mademoiselle again headed that comic revolution, the Fronde, as in the old days when she climbed the walls at Orleans and assumed command against the forces of the king?  What if Monsieur de Retz issued orders from the Palais Royal, using the same-pen with which Mazarin had demanded his resignation as Archbishop of Paris?  In fact, what if Madame de Longueville, aided by the middle class, had once more taken up quarters in the Hotel de Ville?  Oh! so many things happened in Paris in thirty days that the Chevalier would not have been surprised to learn that the boy Louis had declared to govern his kingdom without the assistance of ministers, priests, and old women.  Ah, that Fronde!  Those had been gallant days, laughable, it is true; but every one seemed to be able to pluck a feather from the golden goose of fortune.  He was eighteen then, and had followed the royal exodus to Germain.