“Ah, monsieur,” cried the delighted Rochefort, from behind his mask, “I have never heard anything quite like that before. I would give the liberty which I do not possess to be able to curse like that—and they said you had no tongue! Tell me, was it by training you arrived at this perfection, or was it a natural gift?” “Monsieur,” said Roux, “I am forbidden to speak to you.” The carriage rolled on, leaving the old Hôtel of the Black Musketeers on the right, and the Bastille and the Porte St. Antoine safely behind. Rochefort, seated beside his silent companion, said nothing more, at least with his tongue. The silence of Captain Roux might be a check to conversation, but it lent itself completely to that form of mental conversation which Villon has so well exemplified in the Debate between his heart and body. Commonsense and M. de Rochefort were having a few words together, and commonsense was doing most of the talking. “Well, Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Commonsense, “and here we are in a police carriage, at last, being driven to his Majesty’s fortress of Vincennes; and all on account of Politics—that is to say, a woman. You have known a hundred women, yet they have never succeeded in dragging you into Politics. How did this one manage it? You lost your heart to her. That is precisely what happened, and now you have lost your liberty as well as your heart; next thing, you will lose your estates, then you will take this Choiseul by the neck and strangle him, and then you will lose your head—and all through a woman. “You have made a fool of yourself, Monsieur de Rochefort. Yesterday, you were free as a butterfly, the whole world lay before you, you did not know the meaning of the word Liberty. Well, you are to learn the meaning of that word, and the lesson promises to be a curious one. You are not Choiseul’s prisoner, you are not Sartines’ prisoner, you are not even yourself. You are Monsieur La Porte, and you are being tucked away in Vincennes, hidden, just as a man might hide an incriminating letter in a desk. Why is Sartines so anxious to hide you? Is it not that he fears that you may be found, and if this fear does not fade away in his mind, it is quite on the cards that you may never be found. “And you can do nothing as yet, only wait. Monsieur Lavenne is your friend, and it seems to me he is the only friend you have got in the world.” Commonsense is sometimes wrong, as in this instance. It had forgotten Javotte. Rochefort was aroused from his reverie by the stoppage of the carriage. They had arrived at the main gate of Vincennes. The great fortress towered above them, the battlements cutting the sky and showing the silhouette of a passing sentry against the free blue of heaven. Rochefort heard the harsh voices of the guards interrogating the coachman. Then the carriage passed on, rumbling across the drawbridge, and drew up in the courtyard before the door of the entrance for prisoners.