Now the chevalier little relished anything of this kind. It seemed to him that, in telling his adventure, he would, so to speak, soil and mar it. He said to himself that chance had done for him something unheard of, incredible, and that it should remain a secret between himself and Fortune. To confide this secret to the first comer was, to his thinking, to rob it of its value, and to show himself unworthy of it. “I went alone yesterday to the castle at Versailles,” thought he, “I can surely go alone to Trianon?” This was, at the time, the abode of the favorite. Such a way of thinking might, and even should, appear extravagant to calculating minds, who neglect no detail, and leave as little as possible to chance; but colder mortals, if they were ever young, and not everybody is so, even in youth, have known that strange sentiment, both weak and bold, dangerous and seductive, which drags us to our fate. One feels one’s self blind, and wishes to be so; one does not know where one is going and yet walks on. The charm of the thing consists in this recklessness and this very ignorance; it is the pleasure of the artist in his dreams, of the lover spending the night beneath the windows of his mistress; it is the instinct of the soldier; it is, above all, that of the gamester. The chevalier, almost without knowing it, had thus taken his way to Trianon. Without being very _paré_, as they said in those days, he lacked neither elegance nor that indescribable air which forbids a chance lackey, meeting one, from daring to ask where one is going. It was, therefore, not difficult for him, thanks to information he had obtained at the inn, to reach the gate of the château--if one can so call that marble _bonbonnière_, which has seen so many pleasures and pains in bygone days. Unfortunately, the gate was closed, and a stout Swiss wearing a plain coat was walking about, his hands behind his back, in the inner avenue, like a person who is not expecting any one. “The King is here!” said the chevalier to himself, “or else the marquise is away. Evidently, when the doors are closed, and valets stroll about, the masters are either shut in or gone out.” What was to be done? Full as he had been, a moment earlier, of courage and confidence, he now felt, all at once, confused and disappointed. The mere thought, “The King is here!” alone gave him more alarm than those few words, on the night before: “The King is about to pass!” For then he was but facing the unknown, and now he knew that icy stare, that implacable, impassible majesty. “Ah! Bon Dieu! What a figure I should cut if I were to be so mad as to try and penetrate this garden, and find myself face to face with this superb monarch, sipping his coffee beside a rivulet.”