all that passed in his majesty's apartment.

Warned by the last words of the young king, he came out just in time to
salute him on his passage, and to follow him with his eyes till he had
disappeared in the corridor.

Then as soon as he had disappeared, he shook his head after a fashion
peculiarly his own, and in a voice which forty years' absence from
Gascony had not deprived of its Gascon accent, "A melancholy service,"
said he, "and a melancholy master!"

These words pronounced, the lieutenant resumed his place in his
_fauteuil_, stretched his legs and closed his eyes, like a man who either
sleeps or meditates.

During this short monologue and the _mise en scene_ that had accompanied
it, whilst the king, through the long corridors of the old castle,
proceeded to the apartment of M. de Mazarin, a scene of another sort was
being enacted in those apartments.

Mazarin was in bed, suffering a little from the gout. But as he was a
man of order, who utilized even pain, he forced his wakefulness to be the
humble servant of his labor. He had consequently ordered Bernouin, his
_valet de chambre_, to bring him a little traveling-desk, so that he
might write in bed. But the gout is not an adversary that allows itself
to be conquered so easily; therefore, at each movement he made, the pain
from dull became sharp.

"Is Brienne there?" asked he of Bernouin.