"He has heard already ?" "He has, indeed; and should he learn that your flesh still walks the earth, methinks it would go worse with you than it went even with Eugene de Canaples." In answer to the questions with which I excitedly plied him, I drew from him the story of how Eugene had arrived the day before in Paris, and gone straight to the Palais Royal.

M.de Montresor had been on guard in the ante-chamber, and in virtue of an excitement noticeable in Canaples's bearing, coupled with the ill-odour wherein already he was held by Mazarin, the lieutenant's presence had been commanded in the Cardinal's closet during the interview--for his Eminence was never like to acquire fame for valour.
In his exultation at what had chanced, and at the manner in which Mazarin's Chateau en Espagne had been dispelled, Canaples used little caution, or even discretion, in what he said.

In fact, from what Montresor told me, I gathered that the fool's eagerness to be the first to bear the tidings to Mazarin sprang from a rash desire to gloat over the Cardinal's discomfiture.

He had told his story insolently--almost derisively--and Mazarin's fury, driven beyond bounds already by what he had heard, became a very tempest of passion 'neath the lash of Canaples's impertinences.

And, naturally enough, that tempest had burst upon the only head available--Eugene de Canaples's--and the Cardinal had answered his jibes with interest by calling upon Montresor to arrest the fellow and bear him to the Bastille.
When the astonished and sobered Canaples had indignantly asked upon what charge he was being robbed of his liberty, the Cardinal had laughed at him, and answered with his never-failing axiom that "He who sings, pays." "You sang lustily enough just now," his Eminence had added, "and you shall pay by lodging awhile in an oubliette of the Bastille, where you may lift up your voice to sing the De profundis." "Was my name not mentioned ?" I anxiously inquired when Montresor had finished.
"Not once.