"Then die as you deserve!" replied Lafemas; and after once more looking from the window, and muttering to himself a few words, whose import De Blenau did not catch, he left the apartment with his two followers. De Blenau cast himself on the bed, and hiding his face in the clothes, endeavoured to drive from his memory the dreadful scene he had just beheld; but it still continued for many an after-hour to hover before his eyes, and deprive him of all rest or peace. The hours of a prison are always slow, and they were now doubly slow to De Blenau, having no other pastime than painful reflections, and anticipations equally bitter. At length, however, the day of his trial arrived, and he was conveyed in a carriage to Pierre-en-Scize, where, in the hall of audience, sate three of the devoted creatures of Richelieu, presiding over a body equally governed by themselves, and all prepared to pronounce a sentence already dictated by the Minister. Although the President of the parliament of Grenoble nominally directed the business of the Court, Lafemas was not absent, and in his eyes De Blenau instantly discerned his fate. The charge against the prisoner was read by one of the clerks, declaring him to stand in danger of high treason, in having conspired with the Sieurs Cinq Mars, Fontrailles, De Thou, and others, to bring foreign troops into France, and for having treated and combined with a power at open war with the kingdom for various treasonable and disloyal purposes. The evidence brought forward to establish this, was as frivolous as the accusation was unfounded. Even the very semblance of justice was nearly abandoned, the Judges seeming to go through the trial as a useless and tiresome ceremony, which might very well be dispensed with. It was proved, indeed, that the prisoner had often been seen in private with the unfortunate Cinq Mars; and it was also given in evidence by a servant of the Duke of Orleans, that he had carried a letter from that Prince to De Blenau at Moulins; and that in consequence of that letter, as he conceived, the Duke had gone, with a great air of secrecy, to a particular spot, where he was unaccustomed to ride upon ordinary occasions, and that there he was met by De Blenau. What conversation took place between them, he could not tell; but after they had separated, the Duke, he said, gave particular orders that their meeting should be mentioned to no man.