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Gondy withdrew, distributing benedictions on his way, and finding a malicious satisfaction in causing the adherents of his foes to prostrate themselves at his feet. "Oh!" he murmured, as he left the threshold of the palace: "ungrateful court! faithless court! cowardly court! I will teach you how to laugh to-morrow but in another manner."
He engaged an upholsterer by the King's command to furnish, at his Majesty's expense, the apartments, as the Baron de Gondy, he said, had long since sold and eaten up all the furniture. He likewise laid in six pieces of wine and as many of beer, "tavern drinks" being in the opinion of the thrifty ambassador "both dear and bad."
D'Artagnan bowed, and thought: "Both at the same hour; both commands alike; both at the Palais Royal. Monsieur de Gondy would pay a hundred thousand francs for such a secret!" "You are thoughtful," said Mazarin, uneasily. "Yes, I was thinking whether we ought to come armed or not." "Armed to the teeth!" replied Mazarin. "Very well, my lord; it shall be so."
"Not badly answered, i'faith," said Gondy, laughing; "but I have, you must know, always had, in spite of my bands, warlike inclinations." "Well, my lord, before I became a confectioner I myself was three years sergeant in the Piedmontese regiment, and before I became sergeant I was for eighteen months the servant of Monsieur d'Artagnan." "The lieutenant of musketeers?" asked Gondy.
Aerssens obtained for their use the Hotel Gondy, formerly the residence of Don Pedro de Toledo, the most splendid private palace in Paris, and recently purchased by the Queen. It was considered expedient that the embassy should make as stately an appearance as that of royal or imperial envoys.
And through what motives? Gondy wished to avenge his former mistress, whom Conti had rejected, and whom an agent of Condé, Maillard the shoemaker, had publicly insulted.
He told Cardinal Gondy, who was spokesman of the deputation, that he had long since answered such propositions. He alone could deal with his subjects. He was like the woman before Solomon; he would have all the child or none of it. Rather than dismember his kingdom he would lose the whole. He asked them what they considered him to be.
Condé accused Gondy in the Parliament chamber of being author of a factum condemning severely the Prince's conduct. La Rochefoucauld, getting Gondy between two doors, treacherously seized, and was about to strangle him, had not the son of the first President, M. de Champlatreux, come to the rescue, at the very moment that one of the bullies in Condé's pay had drawn his dagger to despatch him.
He engaged an upholsterer by the King's command to furnish, at his Majesty's expense, the apartments, as the Baron de Gondy, he said, had long since sold and eaten up all the furniture. He likewise laid in six pieces of wine and as many of beer, "tavern drinks" being in the opinion of the thrifty ambassador "both dear and bad."
"Who knows?" said Gondy; "such men are like thunderbolts one recognizes them only when they have struck." Every one shuddered and there was a moment of silence, during which the queen pressed her hand to her side, evidently to still the beatings of her heart. "Yes," said Porthos, "I see him. What then?" "Well, he is a man." Porthos looked at D'Artagnan in astonishment.
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