Pauline recoiled with a look of fear; and De Blenau calmly put the man's hand from off his sleeve. "Pass on, Sir," he said, "I am your prisoner." The Officer hesitated; "Pass on, Sir," repeated the Count; "you have my word. I am your prisoner."
The man passed on, but not before he had made a sign to the soldiers who were with him, who suffered the Count and Pauline to pass, and then closing in, followed at a few paces distance.
On reaching the saloon, the Queen took her seat; and beckoning to Pauline, who, faint and terrified, was hardly able to support herself, she made her sit down on the footstool at her feet. "Now, Sir Officer," said Anne of Austria, "what news bring you from Narbonne? How fares his Majesty the King?"
"May it please you, Madame," he replied, "I come not from Narbonne, as your Majesty supposes, but from Tarascon, where the King had just arrived when I departed."
"The King at Tarascon!" exclaimed Anne of Austria. "In the name of Heaven, what does he at Tarascon?"
"That is beyond my knowledge," answered the Officer. "All I can tell your Majesty is, that for the last week there has been strange flying of couriers from one place to another. Monsieur de Chavigni has almost killed himself with riding between Tarascon and Narbonne. Every thing is altered, evidently, but no one knows how or why; and just as Aleron, Monsieur de Brezé's _maitre d'hotel_, was about to give me the whole history, I received an order to set off for Paris instantly, and when I arrived there, to take twenty troopers from the _caserne_, and come on hither on the errand which I have the honour to perform."
"But did you hear nothing?" demanded the Queen, earnestly. "Did this Aleron tell you nothing?"
"Nothing, Madame," replied the Officer. "He had just made me promise inviolable secrecy, and we were interrupted before he began his tale; or I would have told your Majesty with pleasure."
"But from report?" said the Queen. "Did you gain no knowledge from rumour?"
"Oh, there were rumours enough, truly," answered the man; "but as fast as one came, it was contradicted by another. Some said that the troops at Perpignan had revolted, and some that Monsieur le Grand had killed Cardinal Mazarin. Others brought word that Monsieur de Noyers had tried to poison the King; and others, that the King had kicked Fontrailles for hunting in short boots."