"Alarmed at what?" demanded the Count, summoning courage to encounter the danger, whatever it might be.
"Why, Monsieur de Blenau," answered the Governor, "you must prepare yourself to meet the Cardinal himself; a messenger has just come to say that he will be here in person without loss of time. He arrived last night at the Palais Cardinal, and brought the King to Paris with him."
"You seem to hold this Cardinal in some fear," said De Blenau, almost smiling, amidst his own embarrassment, at the evident terror of the Governor. "I could have wished that he had given me a little more time for consideration; but I am not so frightened at him as you seem to be, who have nothing to do with it."
"But pray remember, _mon cher Comte_," cried the Governor, "that you promised not to betray me to the Cardinal in any case."
De Blenau's lip curled with contempt. "I think, you ought to know before this time," answered he, "that I am not likely to betray any one.--But there seems a noise and bustle in the court, in all probability caused by the arrival of the Cardinal. Go and receive him, and depend upon me."--Of all misfortunes on the earth, thought De Blenau, the curse of cowardice is the most dreadful.
In a few minutes his supposition respecting the arrival of the Cardinal was confirmed by a summons to appear before the Council in the hall of audience; and with his mind still undecided, he followed the officer across the court to the scene of his former examination. A difference, however, struck him in the present arrangements of the prison, from those which he had before remarked.
The court, instead of being crowded by those prisoners who had the liberty of walking in it, was now entirely void; and, fixed like marble on each side of the door opening into the audience-hall, was a soldier of the Cardinal's guard, between whom stood a clerk, or greffier, of the council-chamber, seemingly waiting for the approach of the prisoner. As soon as De Blenau was within hearing, the doors were thrown open, and the Clerk pronounced, "Claude Count de Blenau, appear before the King in council."
"The King!" thought De Blenau; "this Cardinal, not content with taking the King's guards, must take his title also:"--but passing on through the open doors he entered the hall, where a very different scene presented itself from that which had before met his eyes in the same place.