Once I heard him laugh, and twice he uttered in a tone of bitter mockery the words,-- 'Fools! Fools! Fools!' At last he looked up, saw me, and started.
'Ah!' he said, 'I had forgotten you.

Well, you are fortunate, M.de Berault.

Yesterday I had a hundred clients; to-day I have only one, and I cannot afford to hang him.

But for your liberty that is another matter.' I would have said something, pleaded something; but he turned abruptly to the table, and sitting down wrote a few lines on a piece of paper.
Then he rang his bell, while I stood waiting and confounded.
The man in black came from behind the screen.
'Take this letter and that gentleman to the upper guard-room,' the Cardinal said sharply.

'I can hear no more,' he continued, frowning and raising his hand to forbid interruption.