them. "Come! quick! What is going on? What are they doing there? Who
are these assassins? What are these cries?"

"They cry, 'Long live Monsieur!'"

Gaston, without appearing to hear, and holding the door of his chamber
open for an instant, that his voice might reach the galleries in which
were the people of his household, continued to cry with all his strength,
gesticulating violently:

"I know nothing of all this, and I have authorized nothing. I will not
hear anything! I will not know anything! I will never enter into any
project! These are rioters who make all this noise; do not speak to me
of them, if you wish to be well received here. I am the enemy of no man;
I detest such scenes!"

Fontrailles, who knew the man with whom he had to deal, said nothing, but
entered with his friend, that Monsieur might have time to discharge his
first fury; and when all was said, and the door carefully shut, he began
to speak:

"Monseigneur," said he, "we come to ask you a thousand pardons for the
impertinence of these people, who will persist in crying out that they
desire the death of your enemy, and that they would even wish to make you
regent should we have the misfortune to lose his Majesty. Yes, the
people are always frank in their discourse; but they are so numerous that
all our efforts could not restrain them. It was truly a cry from the
heart--an explosion of love, which reason could not restrain, and which
escaped all bounds."