Once he had sworn to lay the Scarlet Pimpernel by the heels, and that oath was not yet wholly forgotten; it had lain dormant after the catastrophe of Boulogne, but with the sight of Armand St.Just it had re-awakened and confronted him again with the strength of a likely fulfilment.
The courtyard looked gloomy and deserted.

The thin drizzle which still fell from a persistently leaden sky effectually held every outline of masonry, of column, or of gate hidden as beneath a shroud.

The corridor which skirted it all round was ill-lighted save by an occasional oil-lamp fixed in the wall.
But Chauvelin knew his way well.

Heron's lodgings gave on the second courtyard, the Square du Nazaret, and the way thither led past the main square tower, in the top floor of which the uncrowned King of France eked out his miserable existence as the plaything of a rough cobbler and his wife.
Just beneath its frowning bastions Chauvelin turned back towards Armand.
He pointed with a careless hand up-wards to the central tower.
"We have got little Capet in there," he said dryly.

"Your chivalrous Scarlet Pimpernel has not ventured in these precincts yet, you see." Armand was silent.