He began by what he conceived to be the more urgent measure, and stepping across to the Palais Seneschal, he demanded to see Monsieur de Tressan at once.
Ushered into the Lord Seneschal's presence, he startled that obese gentleman by the announcement that he had returned from Condillac with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, and that he would require an escort to accompany them to Paris.
"For I am by no means minded to be exposed to such measures as the tigress of Condillac and her cub may take to recover their victim," he explained with a grim smile.
The Seneschal combed his beard and screwed up his pale eyes until they vanished in the cushions of his cheeks.

He was lost in amazement.
He could only imagine that the Queen's emissary had been duped more successfully this time.
"I am to gather, then," said he, dissembling what was passing through his mind, "that you delivered the lady by force or strategy." "By both, monsieur," was the short answer.
Tressan continued to comb his beard, and pondered the situation.

If things were so, indeed, they could not have fallen out more to his taste.

He had had no hand in it, one way or the other.

He had run with the hare and hunted with the hounds, and neither party could charge him with any lack of loyalty.