From the Memoirs of a Minister of France | Page 6

sirrah?"
Maignan saluted obsequiously, and in a moment hurried young Perrot from the room; leaving me to congratulate myself on the strange and fortuitous circumstance that had thrown him in my way, and enabled me to guard against a RENCONTRE that might have had the most embarassing consequences.
It required no great sagacity to foresee the, next move; and I was not surprised when, about an hour later, I heard a clatter of hoofs outside, and a voice inquiring hurriedly for the Marquis de Rosny. One of my people announced M. de Perrot, and I bade them admit him. In a twinkling he came up, pale with heat, and covered with dust, his eyes almost starting from his head and his cheeks trembling with agitation. Almost before the door was shut, he cried out that we were undone.
I was willing to divert myself with him for a time, and I pretended to know nothing. "What?" I said, rising. "Has the King met with an accident?"
"Worse! worse!" he cried, waving his hat with a gesture of despair. "My son--you saw my son yesterday?"
"Yes," I said.
"He overheard us!"
"Not us," I said drily. "You. But what then, M. de Perrot? You are master in your own house."
"But he is not in my house," he wailed. "He has gone! Fled! Decamped! I had words with him this morning, you understand."
"About your niece?"
M. de Perrot's face took a delicate shade of red, and he nodded; he could not speak. He seemed for an instant in danger of some kind of fit. Then he found his voice again. "The fool prated of love! Of love!" he said with such a look--like that of a dying fowl--that I could have laughed aloud. "And when I bade him remember his duty he threatened me. He, that unnatural boy, threatened to betray me, to ruin me, to go to Madame de Beaufort and tell her all--all, you understand. And I doing so much, and making such sacrifices for him!"
"Yes," I said, "I see that. And what did you do?"
"I broke my cane on his back," M. de Perrot answered with unction, "and locked him in his room. But what is the use? The boy has no natural feelings!"
"He got out through the window?"
Perrot nodded; and being at leisure, now that he had explained his woes, to feel their full depth, shed actual tears of rage and terror; now moaning that Madame would never forgive him, and that if he escaped the Bastille he would lose all his employments and be the laughing-stock of the Court; and now striving to show that his peril was mine, and that it was to my interest to help him.
I allowed him to go on in this strain for some time, and then, having sufficiently diverted myself with his forebodings, I bade him in an altered voice to take courage. "For I think I know," I said, "where your son is."
"At Madame's?" he groaned.
"No; here," I said.
"MON DIEU! Where?" he cried. And he sprang up, startled out of his lamentations.
"Here; in my lodging," I answered.
"My son is here?" he said.
"In the next room," I replied, smiling indulgently at his astonishment, which was only less amusing than his terror. "I have but to touch this bell, and Maignan will bring him to you."
Full of wonder and admiration, he implored me to ring and have him brought immediately; since until he had set eyes on him he could not feel safe. Accordingly I rang my hand-bell, and Maignan opened the door. "The clockmaker," I said nodding.
He looked at me stupidly. "The clock-maker, your excellency?"
"Yes; bring him in," I said.
"But--he has gone!" he exclaimed.
"Gone?" I cried, scarcely able to believe my ears. "Gone, sirrah! and I told you to detain him!"
"Until he had mended the clock, my lord," Maignan stammered, quite out of countenance. "But he set it going half-an-hour ago; and I let him go, according to your order."
It is in the face of such CONTRETEMPS as these that the low-bred man betrays himself. Yet such was my chagrin on this occasion, and so sudden the shock, that it was all I could do to maintain my SANGFROID, and, dismissing Maignan with a look, be content to punish M. de Perrot with a sneer. "I did not know that your son was a tradesman," I said. He wrung his hands. "He has low tastes," he cried. "He always had. He has amused himself that way, And now by this time he is with Madame de Beaufort and we are undone!"
"Not we," I answered curtly; "speak for yourself, M. de Perrot."
But though, having no mind to appear in his eyes dependent on Madame's favour or caprice, I thus checked his familiarity, I am free to confess that my calmness was partly assumed; and that, though I knew my position