"Oh, no, no!" cried the Queen, "give no messages but in the last extremity. How do we know that this Woodman might not betray us, and raise Richelieu's suspicions still more? If you can see De Blenau, well---- I will give you a letter for him; but if not, only tell the Woodman to inform him, that I have confessed all. If that reach the tyrant's ears, it can do no harm. Your undertaking is bold, Pauline: think you your courage will hold out?" The boundaries between emulation and jealousy are very frail, and Madame de Beaumont, who regarded the services which Mademoiselle de Hauteford had rendered the Queen with some degree of envy, now answered for her daughter's courage with more confidence than perhaps she felt. But Pauline's plan yet required great arrangement, even to give it the probability of success. With a thousand eyes continually upon their actions, it was no very easy matter even to quit Chantilly without calling down that observation and inquiry which would have been fatal to their project. To obviate this difficulty, however, it was agreed that Pauline should accompany Mademoiselle de Hauteford, whose sentence of banishment required her immediate presence in Paris, for the arrangement of her affairs. On their arrival in that city, the two ladies were to take up their abode with the old Marchioness de Senecy, one of the Queen's most devoted adherents, and to determine their future proceedings by the information they received upon the spot. The greatest rapidity, however, was necessary to any hope of success, and neither Pauline nor Mademoiselle de Hauteford lost any time in their preparations. The Queen's letter to De Blenau was soon written. Pauline borrowed from her maid Louise, the full dress of a Languedoc peasant, provided herself with a considerable sum of money, that no means might be left untried, and having taken leave of her mother, whose bold counsels tended to raise her spirits and uphold her resolution, she placed herself in the _chaise roulante_ beside Mademoiselle de Hauteford, buoyed up with youthful confidence and enthusiasm. It was rather an anxious moment, however, as they passed the gates of the Palace, which by some accident were shut. This caused a momentary delay, and several of the Cardinal's guard (for Richelieu assumed that of a bodyguard amongst other marks of royalty) gathered round the vehicle with the idle curiosity of an unemployed soldiery. Pauline's heart beat fast, but the moment after she was relieved by the appearance of the old _concierge_, or porter, who threw open the gates, and the carriage rolled out without any question being asked. Her mind, however, was not wholly relieved till they were completely free of the town of Chantilly, and till the carriage slowly mounting the first little hill, took a slight turn to avoid a steeper ascent, showing them the towers of the chateau and the course of the road they had already passed, without any human form that could afford subject for alarm.