[This punning prediction was made public three months before the,
conspiracy.]

"There is a traitor among us, gentlemen," he said, throwing away the
paper. "But no matter. We are not men to be frightened by his
sanguinary jests."

"We must find the traitor out, and throw him through the window," said
the young men.

Still, a disagreeable sensation had come over the assembly. They now
only spoke in whispers, and each regarded his neighbor with distrust.
Some withdrew; the meeting grew thinner. Marion de Lorme repeated to
every one that she would dismiss her servants, who alone could be
suspected. Despite her efforts a coldness reigned throughout the
apartment. The first sentences of Cinq-Mars' address, too, had left some
uncertainty as to the intentions of the King; and this untimely candor
had somewhat shaken a few of the less determined conspirators.

Gondi pointed this out to Cinq-Mars.

"Hark ye!" he said in a low voice. "Believe me, I have carefully
studied conspiracies and assemblages; there are certain purely mechanical
means which it is necessary to adopt. Follow my advice here; I know a
good deal of this sort of thing. They want something more. Give them a
little contradiction; that always succeeds in France. You will quite
make them alive again. Seem not to wish to retain them against their
will, and they will remain."

The grand ecuyer approved of the suggestion, and advancing toward those