Any one who happened at that moment to contemplate that red simar -- the gorgeous robe of office -- and the rich lace, or who gazed on that pale brow, bent in anxious meditation, might, in the solitude of that apartment, combined with the silence of the ante-chambers and the measured paces of the guards upon the landing-place, have fancied that the shade of Cardinal Richelieu lingered still in his accustomed haunt.
The Earl of Essex, 'tis true, wore a splendid ring, set with diamonds, given him by his royal mistress, whilst I -- I have nothing but a simple circlet of gold, with a cipher on it and a date; but that ring has been blessed in the chapel of the Palais Royal,* so they will never ruin me, as they long to do, and whilst they shout,`Down with Mazarin!' I, unknown, and unperceived by them, incite them to cry out, `Long live the Duke de Beaufort' one day; another, `Long live the Prince de Conde;' and again,`Long live the parliament!'" And at this word the smile on the cardinal's lips assumed an expression of hatred, of which his mild countenance seemed incapable.
* It is said that Mazarin, who, though a cardinal, had not taken such vows as to prevent it, was secretly married to Anne of Austria.
Now, at the moment when the door had opened to admit the cardinal, the nine parts of self-esteem in Gringoire, swollen and expanded by the breath of popular admiration, were in a state of prodigious augmentation, beneath which disappeared, as though stifled, that imperceptible molecule of which we have just remarked upon in the constitution of poets; a precious ingredient, by the way, a ballast of reality and humanity, without which they would not touch the earth.
The reader can now judge of the effect produced upon him by the abrupt and unseasonable arrival of the cardinal.
The cardinal halted for a moment on the threshold of the estrade.
"You are accused of high treason," said the cardinal, slowly.
"She said that the Cardinal de Richelieu had drawn the Duke of Buckingham to Paris to ruin him and to ruin the queen."
"She said that?" cried the cardinal, with violence.
It must, however, be allowed, that when he saw, in the hall of reception, chairs of equal height placed for himself, his mother, the cardinal, and his uncle and aunt, a disposition artfully concealed by the semicircular form of the assembly, Louis XIV.
The gentlemen and ladies were presented to their majesties and monsieur le cardinal.
The king remarked that his mother and he scarcely knew the names of any of the persons who were presented to them; whilst the cardinal, on the contrary never failed, with an admirable memory and presence of mind, to talk to every one about his estates, his ancestors, or his children, some of whom he named, which enchanted those worthy country gentlemen, and confirmed them in the idea that he alone is truly king who knows his subjects, from the same reason that the sun has no rival, because the sun alone warms and lightens.