As all the executive power centred in Richelieu, it could not happen otherwise, but that suppliants and petitioners were numerous, and from all parts of the kingdom, and that among the number should be many of the fair sex. The _politesse_ of the court permitted not such guests to be kept waiting exposed to the observation of the frequenters of the levee. The ladies were ushered into the secretary’s apartment, and that functionary having taken note of their object or petition, carried the same to Monseigneur to receive his commands thereon. If, as too often happened with one whose shoulders bore the burthen of the state, and who was appealed to at the same time by an envoy from Turkey claiming alliance, and by some poor widow or orphan from the Pyrenees with a tale of wrong—there was any delay in granting an interview, or giving a decision on the merits of the case, the fair suppliant was delegated to a waiting-room to attend the minister’s leisure. Here sat, for many tedious hours on the former occasion, our heroine Marguerite—and as she now stated her name and object to the usher whose duty it was to conduct her to the secretary, she vainly endeavored to decipher a chance of better fortune in the impassive countenance of the official, as though it were possible his face would reflect a ray or emanation of the master’s will. The waiting-room was again her sad lot—the cardinal was busily engaged with a German plenipotentiary—but the audience, as the secretary assured her, with a smile, could not last forever. It was but to ask for delay in the prosecution of the penal suit in the _Cour Royale_, that her father might prepare his defence, and prove the innocence of his intentions. It was not even necessary that she should see his eminence—one word to the _procureur_ would oblige him to this act of justice—he was the servant of the king, and must obey the commands of the kingly authority in the person of Monseigneur. So spoke the maiden hesitatingly, but with precision and clearness, yet the secretary—it was De Lionne, not the most heartless man of that age—could only do, as secretaries are wont on such occasions, smile, bow, and, as marking his sense of the justness of her claims to attention, conduct her himself to the door of the drear chamber. Marguerite at length began to despair, and regret she had not taken the advice of Giraud. The sensation of utter weariness, of which De Pontis so often complained to his daughter in the narrow prison-abode, was now experienced by herself. Solitude was only broken by the occasional sound of footsteps—delusive hope!—they paused not at her door.