powers, and whose life I had once been the means of saving by a
little timely information. On occasion he had done something to
wipe out the debt; and at other times he had permitted me to be
free with him, and so far we were not unknown to one another.

Nevertheless, when the doors were at last thrown open, and I was
led into his presence, my confidence underwent a shock. His cold
glance, that, roving over me, regarded me not as a man but an
item, the steely glitter of his southern eyes, chilled me to the
bone. The room was bare, the floor without carpet or covering.
Some of the woodwork lay about, unfinished and in pieces. But
the man--this man, needed no surroundings. His keen pale face,
his brilliant eyes, even his presence--though he was of no great
height, and began already to stoop at the shoulders--were enough
to awe the boldest. I recalled, as I looked at him, a hundred
tales of his iron will, his cold heart, his unerring craft. He
had humbled the King's brother, the splendid Duke of Orleans, in
the dust. He had curbed the Queen-mother. A dozen heads, the
noblest in France, had come to the block through him. Only two
years before he had quelled Rochelle; only a few months before he
had crushed the great insurrection in Languedoc: and though the
south, stripped of its old privileges, still seethed with
discontent, no one in this year 1630 dared lift a hand against
him--openly, at any rate. Under the surface a hundred plots, a
thousand intrigues, sought his life or his power; but these, I
suppose, are the hap of every great man.

No wonder, then, that the courage on which I plumed myself sank
low at sight of him; or that it was as much as I could do to
mingle with the humility of my salute some touch of the SANG