This de Sigognac could not dispute, and he only nodded in token of assent, as he grasped the hilt of his sword, so as to be ready to draw it at the slightest cause for suspicion or alarm. Meantime they had walked on as far as the Porte de la Conférence, and now saw ahead of them a great cloud of dust, and through it the glitter of bayonets. They stepped aside to let the cavalcade pass, and saw that the soldiers preceded the carriage of the king, who was returning from Saint Germain to the Louvre. The curtains of the royal vehicle were raised, and the glasses let down, so that the people could distinctly see their sovereign, Louis XIII, who, pale as a ghost and dressed all in black, sat as motionless as an effigy in wax. Long, dark brown hair fell about his mournful, ghastly countenance, upon which was depicted the same terrible ennui that drove Philip II of Spain, to seclude himself so much, during the later years of his life, in the silence and solitude of the dreary Escorial. His eyes were fixed on vacancy, and seemed utterly lifeless—no desire, no thought, no will lent them light or expression. A profound disgust for and weariness of everything in this life had relaxed his lower lip, which fell sullenly, in a morose, pouting way. His hands, excessively thin and white, lay listlessly upon his knees, like those of certain Egyptian idols. And yet, for all, there was a truly royal majesty about this mournful figure, which personified France, and in whose veins flowed sluggishly the generous blood of Henri IV.