The House of de Mailly: A Romance

It was the evening of Tuesday, January 12th, in the year 1744. By six o'clock the gray of afternoon had deepened to the blackness of night, and a heavy rain began to fall, so that the Sèvres road, a mile beyond the Paris barrier, was shortly thick with mud. The only light here visible came from the window of a wretched tavern at the way-side; and by this mine host, had he been watching, would have had some difficulty in perceiving the two riders who came to an uncertain halt by his door.

"It is late, du Plessis, and we have still three miles to go. More than that, 'tis the worst cabaret in France."

"And you would be no more of a Jean-Jacques than necessary to-night—eh, Claude?" returned the other good-humoredly.

"I should prefer drowning or to perish of a rheum by the way than be poisoned by the liquor to be had here," returned the other, flicking his saddle restlessly with his riding-whip.

"So be it, then. Come, we waste time. Mordi! A little gently there, I beseech! It is raining mud."

A dig of the spur in the thoroughbred's flank, a spattering of drops from the puddle in which they had stood, a quick apology, and the landlord had lost his guests, illustrious guests, who paid never a sou too much for their wine, but could make a drinking-place the fashion for weeks by five minutes' presence within it.

The two rode for some minutes in silence, though no one of the finest apperception could have felt any enmity existent between them. The night lowered. The rain pelted coldly from the starless sky; and horses and riders alike shrank from the raw, streaming atmosphere. When the silence was again broken the lights of Paris were visible in the distance. This time it seemed that du Plessis—the Duc de Richelieu—addressed his companion's secret thoughts as though he had been reading them for some time past.