who fear him not. He believes that we are always conspiring; and they
say at this very moment that there is talk of putting me in the
Bastille."

"Eh! Monsieur le Marechal, why do you delay your departure?" said the
Italian. "I know of no place, except Flanders, where you can find
shelter."

"Ah, Monsieur! you do not know me. So far from flying, I sought out the
King before his departure, and told him that I did so in order to save
people the trouble of looking for me; and that if I knew when he wished
to send me, I would go myself without being taken. He was as kind as I
expected him to be, and said to me, 'What, my old friend, could you have
thought that I desired to send you there? You know well that I love
you.'"

"Ah, my dear Marechal, let me compliment you," said Madame d'Effiat, in a
soft voice. "I recognize the benevolence of the King in these words; he
remembers the affection which the King, his father, had toward you. It
appears to me that he always accorded to you all that you desired for
your friends," she added, with animation, in order to put him into the
track of praise, and to beguile him from the discontent which he had so
loudly declared.

"Assuredly, Madame," answered he; "no one is more willing to recognize
his virtues than Francois de Bassompierre. I shall be faithful to him to
the end, because I gave myself, body and fortune, to his father at a
ball; and I swear that, with my consent at least, none of my family shall
ever fail in their duties toward the King of France. Although the
Besteins are foreigners and Lorrains, a shake of the hand from Henri IV