“No, monsieur, you are not. It is absolutely impossible to leave the walls of Paris, and were you by some miracle to do so, Monsieur de Choiseul would place his hand on you before you left France.” “I will risk it.” “You cannot—It is not a question of risk, it is a question of certainty. Now, monsieur, you are young, you have forty years more of good life before you, and you are in great danger of losing them.” “I do not fear death.” “Everyone knows that, but it is not death that you have to fear at the hands of Monsieur de Choiseul; it is something much worse.” “And that?” “La Bastille, monsieur. She is a terrible person, who rarely lets go what she once lays a hold on. You say to yourself, ‘Bah! I will fight my way from Paris, I will escape somehow.’ Well, I tell you, you will not. I will prove it to you. Last night, you ordered a horse to be kept waiting for you at noon to-day a quarter of a mile beyond the Porte St. Antoine.” “How do you know that?” “The Hôtel de Sartines knows everything, monsieur—— Well, Monsieur de Sartines would be very happy not to interfere with this way of escape for you, were it not that he knows Monsieur de Choiseul’s plans as well as yours. In short, monsieur, the Porte St. Antoine is guarded so well by Monsieur de Choiseul’s orders, that no one can leave Paris even in disguise; every other gate is guarded as strictly.” “_Diable_!” said Rochefort. “It seems, then, that I must convert myself into a bird to fly over the walls.” “Monsieur de Choiseul would set his falcons on you, monsieur.” “Into a rat, then, to crawl out through the sewers.” “The Hôtel de Choiseul contains many cats, monsieur.” “My faith, that’s true,” cried Rochefort, with a laugh, “since it contains Madame de Choiseul and her friend, Madame la Princesse de Guemenée. Well, then, I must stay in Paris. I will go and live with Monsieur Rousseau and help him to write poetry—or is it music that he writes?” “Neither, monsieur—but time is passing, and my business is urgent. I am here to arrest you, and I call on you, monsieur, to follow me.” “And where?—to the Bastille?” “No, monsieur, to Vincennes, where we will hide you away from Monsieur de Choiseul till this business has blown over, and where you will be treated as a prisoner, but as a gentleman.” “But were I to fall in with this mad plan of yours, Monsieur Lavenne, I would simply be running down Choiseul’s throat, it seems to me. As the first Minister of France, he will easily find me in Vincennes.”