The King, astonished at this silence, and, fearing that he had committed
some gross military blunder by his question, blushed slightly, and,
approaching the group of princes who had accompanied him, said, in order
to reassure himself:

"D'Angouleme, Beaufort, this is very tiresome, is it not? We stand here
like mummies."

Charles de Valois drew near and said:

"It seems to me, Sire, that they are not employing here the machines of
the engineer Pompee-Targon."

"Parbleu!" said the Duc de Beaufort, regarding Richelieu fixedly, "that
is because we were more eager to take Rochelle than Perpignan at the time
that Italian came. Here we have not an engine ready, not a mine, not a
petard beneath these walls; and the Marechal de la Meilleraie told me
this morning that he had proposed to bring some with which to open the
breach. It was neither the Castillet, nor the six great bastions which
surround it, nor the half-moon, we should have attacked. If we go on in
this way, the great stone arm of the citadel will show us its fist a long
time yet."

The Cardinal, still motionless, said not a single word; he only made a
sign to Fabert, who left the group in attendance, and ranged his horse
behind that of Richelieu, close to the captain of his guards.

The Duc de la Rochefoucauld, drawing near the King, said: