"Well, then, madame, not a day passes in which I do not
suffer affronts from your princes and your lordly servants,
all of them automata who do not perceive that I wind up the
spring that makes them move, nor do they see that beneath my
quiet demeanor lies the still scorn of an injured, irritated
man, who has sworn to himself to master them one of these
days. We have arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he is the
least dangerous among them. There is the Prince de Conde
---- "

"The hero of Rocroy. Do you think of him?"

"Yes, madame, often and often, but pazienza, as we say in
Italy; next, after Monsieur de Conde, comes the Duke of
Orleans."

"What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the
king's uncle!"

"No! not the first prince of the blood, not the king's
uncle, but the base conspirator, the soul of every cabal,
who pretends to lead the brave people who are weak enough to
believe in the honor of a prince of the blood -- not the
prince nearest to the throne, not the king's uncle, I
repeat, but the murderer of Chalais, of Montmorency and of
Cinq-Mars, who is playing now the same game he played long
ago and who thinks that he will win the game because he has
a new adversary -- instead of a man who threatened, a man
who smiles. But he is mistaken; I shall not leave so near