for it is not life, it is merely existence, in prison!
Meantime, Mazarin redoubled his surveillance over the duke.
But like the miser in the fable, he could not sleep for
thinking of his treasure. Often he awoke in the night,
suddenly, dreaming that he had been robbed of Monsieur de
Beaufort. Then he inquired about him and had the vexation of
hearing that the prisoner played, drank, sang, but that
whilst playing, drinking, singing, he often stopped short to
vow that Mazarin should pay dear for all the amusements he
had forced him to enter into at Vincennes.
So much did this one idea haunt the cardinal even in his
sleep, that when at seven in the morning Bernouin came to
arouse him, his first words were: “Well, what’s the matter?
Has Monsieur de Beaufort escaped from Vincennes?”
“I do not think so, my lord,” said Bernouin; “but you will
hear about him, for La Ramee is here and awaits the commands
of your eminence.”
“Tell him to come in,” said Mazarin, arranging his pillows,
so that he might receive the visitor sitting up in bed.
The officer entered, a large fat man, with an open
physiognomy. His air of perfect serenity made Mazarin
uneasy.
“Approach, sir,” said the cardinal.
The officer obeyed.
“Do you know what they are saying here?”
“No, your eminence.”
“Well, they say that Monsieur de Beaufort is going to escape
from Vincennes, if he has not done so already.”
The officer’s face expressed complete stupefaction. He
opened at once his little eyes and his great mouth, to
inhale better the joke his eminence deigned to address to
him, and ended by a burst of laughter, so violent that his
great limbs shook in hilarity as they would have done in an
ague.
“Escape! my lord — escape! Your eminence does not then know
where Monsieur de Beaufort is?”
“Yes, I do, sir; in the donjon of Vincennes.”
“Yes, sir; in a room, the walls of which are seven feet
thick, with grated windows, each bar as thick as my arm.”
“Sir,” replied Mazarin, “with perseverance one may penetrate
through a wall; with a watch-spring one may saw through an
iron bar.”
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“Then my lord does not know that there are eight guards
about him, four in his chamber, four in the antechamber, and
that they never leave him.”
“But he leaves his room, he plays at tennis at the Mall?”
“Sir, those amusements are allowed; but if your eminence
wishes it, we will discontinue the permission.”
“No, no!” cried Mazarin, fearing that should his prisoner
ever leave his prison he would be the more exasperated
against him if he thus retrenched his amusement. He then
asked with whom he played.
“My lord, either with the officers of the guard, with the
other prisoners, or with me.”
“But does he not approach the walls while playing?”
“Your eminence doesn’t know those walls; they are sixty feet
high and I doubt if Monsieur de Beaufort is sufficiently
weary of life to risk his neck by jumping off.”
“Hum!” said the cardinal, beginning to feel more
comfortable. “You mean to say, then, my dear Monsieur la
Ramee —- ”
“That unless Monsieur de Beaufort can contrive to
metamorphose himself into a little bird, I will continue
answerable for him.”
“Take care! you assert a great deal,” said Mazarin.
“Monsieur de Beaufort told the guards who took him to
Vincennes that he had often thought what he should do in
case he were put into prison, and that he had found out
forty ways of escaping.”
“My lord, if among these forty there had been one good way
he would have been out long ago.”
“Come, come; not such a fool as I fancied!” thought Mazarin.
“Besides, my lord must remember that Monsieur de Chavigny is
governor of Vincennes,” continued La Ramee, “and that
Monsieur de Chavigny is not friendly to Monsieur de
Beaufort.”
“Yes, but Monsieur de Chavigny is sometimes absent.”
“When he is absent I am there.”
“But when you leave him, for instance?”
“Oh! when I leave him, I place in my stead a bold fellow who
aspires to be his majesty’s special guard. I promise you he