De Blenau would fain have excused himself, alleging that the habit which he wore was but suited to the morning, and also was soiled with the dust of their long ride. But the Cardinal's officer overbore all opposition, declaring that his Eminence would regard it as a higher compliment, if the Count would refrain from setting foot to the ground till he entered the gates of his Palace. "Then we must go back," said Chavigni. "We are honoured by the Cardinal's invitation. Monsieur de Blenau, pardon me for having brought you so far wrong. Go in, Chatenay," he added, turning to one of his own domestics, "and order flambeaux." In a few moments all was ready; and preceded by half a dozen torch-bearers on foot, they once more turned towards the dwelling of the Minister. As they did so, De Blenau's feelings were not of the most agreeable nature, but he acquiesced in silence, for to have refused his presence would have been worse than useless. The Palais Royal, which, as we have said, was then called the Palais Cardinal, was a very different building when occupied by the haughty Minister of Louis the Thirteenth, from that which we have seen it in our days. The unbounded resources within his power gave to Richelieu the means of lavishing on the mansion which he erected for himself, all that art could produce of elegant, and all that wealth could supply of magnificent. For seven years the famous Le Mercier laboured to perfect it as a building; and during his long administration, the Cardinal himself never ceased to decorate it with every thing rare or luxurious. The large space which it occupied was divided into an outer and an inner court, round which, on every side, the superb range of buildings, forming the Palace, was placed in exact and beautiful proportion, presenting every way an external and internal front, decorated with all the splendour of architectural ornament. The principal façade lay towards the Rue St. Honoré, and another of simpler, but perhaps more correct design, towards the gardens, which last were themselves one of the wonders of Paris at the time. Extending over the space now occupied by the Rue de Richelieu, the Rue de Valois, and several other streets, they contained, within themselves, many acres of ground, and were filled with every plant and flower that Europe then possessed, scattered about amongst the trees, which, being planted long before the formality of the Dutch taste was introduced in France, had in general been allowed to fall into natural groups, unperverted into the long avenues and straight alleys which disfigure so many of the royal parks and gardens on the Continent.