I glanced round me. The room was circular, as it was in one of the towers attached to the keep. Its walls were covered by pale leather stamped over with gilded flowers. It had one long and narrow window, having a pointed arch, well barred without and glazed with stained glass charged with the arms of France, and latticed with brass wire within. The furniture was very plain, but a comfortable fire of wood was blazing on the stone hearth. 'Monsieur's apartment is quite historical,' said the Captain of the Bastille, with a well-bred smile, which to me seemed then a hideous leer; 'it was in this place that the Scottish archer, a Huguenot who was accused of a design to fire the city of Paris, was tortured to death; and here the Comte d'Auvergne, son of Charles IX., was confined until 1616.' 'Confined--how long?' 'About _fifty_ years, I think, monsieur.' I made no reply, for my tongue seemed cleaving unto the roof of my parched mouth. He bowed and left me; and the clatter of bolts and locks as the door was secured, together with the sound of retiring footsteps, as the Captain and his people withdrew, sank like iron into my soul. My bed, which was destitute of curtains, stood close by me, and I flung myself upon it, exclaiming with bitterness-- 'And this is the reward of my service to a faithless King! Send a fool to France and he will still be a fool--'tis our old Scottish proverb, and truly it applies to me.' It seemed almost incredible that the events of the last hour, or of the past day, were reality; that within so short a period, I had been graciously received by the King at Versailles, and had delivered those triumphant despatches which filled all Paris with joy; that within an hour, I had been in the gay and brilliant salon of the beautiful Marion de l'Orme, surrounded by the chief wits of Paris; and now, that I was a lonely state prisoner, without an accuser and without a crime; a prisoner, perhaps to remain so in secret during the caprice of the King; to be handed over, as others have been, from gaoler to gaoler, from chatelain to chatelain; for my name a number substituted, until my hair became white, and even my oldest friends had forgotten that I had once lived and mysteriously disappeared from among them! These thoughts were bitter agony! I thought of the Countess d'Amboise, and the Marquis de Gordon; but I had no means of communicating with either of them, and thus they would remain probably in ignorance of my situation. Who was my enemy--who were my accusers? I started up and traversed my room to and fro, with impatient strides, until I grew weary, and again seated myself on the bed to watch the embers on the hearth as they flickered, reddened, and died in the uncertain currents of air that came down the huge chimney, the aperture of which was secured by an iron grating; and so the long, long night wore away and the lingering dawn began to brighten over sleeping Paris and the distant country.