We were within a score of paces, I found, of the Castle gates; but so were also a second party, who had just debouched from a side-street, and now hurried on, pace for pace, with us, with the evident intention of forestalling us, The race ended in both companies reaching the entrance at the same time, with the consequence of some jostling taking place amongst the servants. This must have led to blows but for the strenuous commands which M. de Rambouillet had laid upon his followers. I found myself in a moment confronted by a row of scowling faces, while a dozen threatening hands were stretched out towards me, and as many voices, among which I recognised Fresnoy’s, cried out tumultuously, ‘That is he! That is the one!’ An elderly man in a quaint dress stepped forward, a paper in his hand, and, backed as he was by half a dozen halberdiers, would in a moment have laid hands on me if M. de Rambouillet had not intervened with a negligent air of authority, which sat on him the more gracefully as he held nothing but a riding-switch in his hands. ‘Tut, tut! What is this?’ he said lightly. ‘I am not wont to have my people interfered with, M. Provost, without my leave. You know me, I suppose?’ ‘Perfectly, M. le Marquis,’ the man answered with dogged respect; ‘but this is by the king’s special command.’ ‘Very good,’ my patron answered, quietly eyeing the faces behind the Provost-Marshal, as if he were making a note of them; which caused some of the gentlemen manifest uneasiness. ‘That is soon seen, for we are even now about to seek speech with his Majesty.’ ‘Not this gentleman,’ the Provost-Marshal answered firmly, raising his hand again. ‘I cannot let him pass.’ ‘Yes, this gentleman too, by your leave,’ the Marquis retorted, lightly putting the hand aside with his cane. ‘Sir,’ said the other, retreating a step, and speaking with some heat, ‘this is no jest with all respect. I hold the king’s own order, and it may not be resisted.’ The nobleman tapped his silver comfit-box and smiled. ‘I shall be the last to resist it--if you have it,’ he said languidly. ‘You may read it for yourself,’ the Provost-Marshal answered, his patience exhausted. M. de Rambouillet took the parchment with the ends of his fingers, glanced at it, and gave it back. ‘As I thought,’ he said, ‘a manifest forgery.’ ‘A forgery!’ cried the other, crimson with indignation. ‘And I had it from the hands of the king’s own secretary!’ At this those behind murmured, some ‘shame,’ and some one thing and some another--all with an air so threatening that the Marquis’s gentlemen closed up behind him, and M. d’Agen laughed rudely.