you conceive it? He dispute with me! A petty priestling, who has no
other merit than a little lively small-talk and a cavalier air.
Fortunately, the husband himself took care to get rid of him."

Father Joseph, who listened with equal impatience to his master when he
spoke of his 'bonnes fortunes' or of his verses, made, however, a grimace
which he meant to be very sly and insinuating, but which was simply ugly
and awkward; he fancied that the expression of his mouth, twisted about
like a monkey's, conveyed, "Ah! who can resist your Eminence?" But his
Eminence only read there, "I am a clown who knows nothing of the great
world"; and, without changing his voice, he suddenly said, taking up a
despatch from the table:

"The Duc de Rohan is dead, that is good news; the Huguenots are ruined.
He is a lucky man. I had him condemned by the Parliament of Toulouse to
be torn in pieces by four horses, and here he dies quietly on the
battlefield of Rheinfeld. But what matters? The result is the same.
Another great head is laid low! How they have fallen since that of
Montmorency! I now see hardly any that do not bow before me. We have
already punished almost all our dupes of Versailles; assuredly they have
nothing with which to reproach me. I simply exercise against them the
law of retaliation, treating them as they would have treated me in the
council of the Queen-mother. The old dotard Bassompierre shall be doomed
for perpetual imprisonment, and so shall the assassin Marechal de Vitry,
for that was the punishment they voted me. As for Marillac, who
counselled death, I reserve death for him at the first false step he
makes, and I beg thee, Joseph, to remind me of him; we must be just to
all. The Duc de Bouillon still keeps up his head proudly on account of
his Sedan, but I shall make him yield. Their blindness is truly
marvellous! They think themselves all free to conspire, not perceiving