"Pardon me, madame, for appearing before your Highness in this plight, but I thought that the tidings I bring should not be delayed." "Speak: did you see the marshal?" "The marshal refused to receive me, madame." "The marshal refused to receive my envoy?" cried the princess. "Ah! madame, that is not all." "What else is there? speak! speak! I am waiting." "Poor Richon--" "Yes, I know; he is a prisoner--did I not send you to negotiate his ransom!" "Although I made all possible speed, I arrived too late." "What! too late?" cried Lenet; "can any harm have come to him?" "He is dead." "Dead!" echoed the princess. "He was tried for high treason, and was condemned and executed." "Condemned! executed! Ah! you hear, madame," said the horror-stricken Lenet, "I told you how it would he!" "Who condemned him? who was so bold? "A court-martial presided over by the Duc d'Épernon, or rather by the queen herself; indeed, they were not content with his death, but decided that it should be infamous." "What! Richon--" "Hanged, madame! hanged like a common malefactor, like a thief or an assassin! I saw his body in the market-place at Libourne." The princess jumped to her feet, as if acted upon by an invisible spring. Lenet uttered an exclamation of grief. Madame de Cambes, who had risen, fell back upon her chair, putting her hand to her heart, as one does when one receives a grievous wound; she had fainted. "Take the viscountess away," said the Duc de La Rochefoucauld; "we have no leisure now to attend to swooning women." Two women bore the viscountess from the room. "This is a brutally frank declaration of war," said the impassive duke. "It is infamous!" said the princess. "It is sheer savagery!" said Lenet. "It is impolitic!" said the duke. "Oh! but I trust that we shall find a way to be revenged!" cried the princess, "and that right cruelly!" "I have my plan!" cried Madame de Tourville, who had said nothing thus far,--"reprisals, your Highness, reprisals!" "One moment, madame," said Lenet; "deuce take me! how fast you go! The affair is of sufficient importance to require reflection." "No, monsieur, not at all," retorted Madame de Tourville; "as the king has acted quickly, it is of the utmost importance that we retaliate promptly with the same stroke." "Why, madame," cried Lenet, "you talk of shedding blood as if you were Queen of France, upon my word. Withhold your opinion at least until her Highness requests you to give it." "Madame is right," said the captain of the guards; "reprisals are in accordance with the laws of war." "Come," said the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, calm and unmoved as always, "let us not waste time in idle words as we are doing. The news will soon spread through the city, and an hour hence we shall have lost control of events and passions and men. Your Highness's first care should be to adopt an attitude so firm that it will be deemed to be unchangeable."