"I trust it may be so, Sir," replied the Count; "and am obliged to you for your kindness. I have violated no law, divine or human; and though, of course, I have many sins to atone towards my God, yet I have none towards my King. I am quite ready to accompany you, but I suppose that I shall not be permitted to return to my own house, even to seek those things which may be necessary for my comfort in the Bastille." "Quite impossible, Sir," replied the officer. "It would be as much as my head is worth to permit you to set foot in your own dwelling." The thoughts of the young Count, as may well be supposed, were turned, at that moment, particularly to Clémence de Marly; and he was most anxious, on every account, to make his servants acquainted with the fact of his having been arrested, in the hope that Riquet would have the good sense to convey the tidings to the Hôtel de Rouvré. To have explained this, in any degree, to the officer who had him in charge, would have been to frustrate the whole design; and therefore he replied, "Far be it from me, Sir, to wish you to do any thing but your duty: but you see, as I have been accustomed, throughout my life, to somewhat perhaps too much luxury, I should be very desirous of procuring some changes of apparel. That, I am aware, may be permitted to me unless I am to be in the strictest and most severe kind of imprisonment which the Bastille admits of. You know by the orders you have received whether such is to be the case or not, and of course I do not wish you to deviate from your orders. Am I to be kept _au secret?_" "Oh dear no, not at all," replied the officer. "The order merely implies your safe custody; and, probably, unless some private commands are given farther, you will have what is called the great liberties of the Bastille: but still that would not, by any means, justify me in permitting you to go to your own house." "No," replied the Count; "but it renders it perfectly possible--if you are, as I believe, disposed to treat a person in my unfortunate situation with kindness and liberality--for you to send down one of your own attendants to my valet, Jerome Riquet, with my orders to send me up, in the course of the day, such clothes as may be necessary for a week. Let the message be verbal, so as to guard against any dangerous communication; and let the clothes be addressed to the care of the governor of the prison, in order that they may be inspected before they are given to me." "Oh, to that, of course, there can be no objection," replied the young officer. "We will do it immediately. But we must lose no time, Monsieur de Morseiul, for the order is countersigned by Monsieur de Louvois, and you know he likes prompt obedience."