It was almost dark when I crossed the bridges, and crept despondently to the Rue Savonnerie. After stabling my horse I took my bag and holsters, and climbing the stairs to my old landlord’s--I remember that the place had grown, as it seemed to me, strangely mean and small and ill-smelling in my absence--I knocked at the door. It was promptly opened by the little tailor himself, who threw up his arms and opened his eyes at sight of me. ‘By Saint Genevieve!’ he said, ‘if it is not M. de Berault?’ ‘It is,’ I said. It touched me a little, after my lonely journey, to find him so glad to see me; though I had never done him a greater benefit than sometimes to unbend with him and borrow his money. ‘You look surprised, little man!’ I continued, as he made way for me to enter. ‘I’ll be sworn that you have been pawning my goods and letting my room, you knave!’ ‘Never, your Excellency!’ he answered. ‘On the contrary, I have been expecting you.’ ‘How?’ I said. ‘To-day?’ ‘To-day or to-morrow,’ he answered, following me in and closing the door. ‘The first thing I said when I heard the news this morning was--now we shall have M. de Berault back again. Your Excellency will pardon the children,’ he continued, bobbing round me, as I took the old seat on the three-legged stool before the hearth. ‘The night is cold and there is no fire in your room.’ While he ran to and fro with my cloak and bags, little Gil, to whom I had stood at St Sulpice’s, borrowing ten crowns the same day, I remember, came shyly to play with my sword hilt. ‘So you expected me back when you heard the news, Frison, did you?’ I said, taking the lad on my knee. ‘To be sure, your Excellency,’ he answered, peeping into the black pot before he lifted it to the hook. ‘Very good. Then now let us hear what the news is,’ I said drily. ‘Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault.’ ‘Ah! And what?’ He looked at me, holding the heavy pot suspended in his hands. ‘You have not heard?’ he exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Not a tittle. Tell it me, my good fellow.’ ‘You have not heard that his Eminence is disgraced?’ I stared at him. ‘Not a word,’ I said. He set down the pot. ‘Then your Excellency must have made a very long journey indeed,’ he said with conviction. ‘For it has been in the air a week or more, and I thought that it had brought you back. A week? A month, I dare say. They whisper that it is the old Queen’s doing. At any rate, it is certain that they have cancelled his commissions and displaced his officers. There are rumours of immediate peace with Spain. Everywhere his enemies are lifting up their heads; and I hear that he has relays of horses set all the way to the coast that he may fly at any moment. For what I know he may be gone already.’ ‘But, man--’ I said, surprised out of my composure. ‘The King! You forget the King. Let the Cardinal once pipe to him and he will dance. And they will dance too!’ I added grimly.