CHAPTER X.The Arithmetic of M.de Mazarin.
Whilst the king was directing his course rapidly towards the wing of the castle occupied by the cardinal, taking nobody with him but his _valet de chambre_, the officer of musketeers came out, breathing like a man who has for a long time been forced to hold his breath, from the little cabinet of which we have already spoken, and which the king believed to be quite solitary.

This little cabinet had formerly been part of the chamber, from which it was only separated by a thin partition.

It resulted that this partition, which was only for the eye, permitted the ear the least indiscreet to hear every word spoken in the chamber.
There was no doubt, then, that this lieutenant of musketeers had heard all that passed in his majesty's apartment.
Warned by the last words of the young king, he came out just in time to salute him on his passage, and to follow him with his eyes till he had disappeared in the corridor.
Then as soon as he had disappeared, he shook his head after a fashion peculiarly his own, and in a voice which forty years' absence from Gascony had not deprived of its Gascon accent, "A melancholy service," said he, "and a melancholy master!" These words pronounced, the lieutenant resumed his place in his _fauteuil_, stretched his legs and closed his eyes, like a man who either sleeps or meditates.
During this short monologue and the _mise en scene_ that had accompanied it, whilst the king, through the long corridors of the old castle, proceeded to the apartment of M.de Mazarin, a scene of another sort was being enacted in those apartments.
Mazarin was in bed, suffering a little from the gout.

But as he was a man of order, who utilized even pain, he forced his wakefulness to be the humble servant of his labor.

He had consequently ordered Bernouin, his _valet de chambre_, to bring him a little traveling-desk, so that he might write in bed.