de Gondi's disposal, towards the expenses
of the civil war which he believed to be imminent,--as, indeed, it is,--the
sum of sixty thousand livres.
"Now albeit I had gone to Canaples for purposes of my own, and not as an
agent of M. le Coadjuteur's, still for many reasons I saw fit to undertake
the Chevalier's commission. And so, bearing the letter in question, which
was hot and unguarded, and charged with endless treasonable matter, I set
out four days later for Paris, arriving here yesterday.
"I little knew that I had been followed by St. Auban. His suspicions must
have been awakened, I know not how, and clearly they were confirmed when I
stopped before the Coadjutor's house last night. I was about to mount the
steps, when of a sudden I was seized from behind by half a dozen hands and
dragged into a side street. I got free for a moment and attempted to
defend myself, but besides St. Auban there were two others. They broke my
sword and attempted to break my skull, in which they went perilously near
succeeding, as you see. Albeit half-swooning, I had yet sufficient
consciousness left to realise that my pockets were being emptied, and that
at last they had torn open my doublet and withdrawn the treasonable letter
from the breast of it.
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