The Duke's Motto

i, now sat upon the throne of France, andseemingly believed himself to be the ruler of his kingdom, though a newlymade Cardinal de Richelieu held a different opinion, and acted accordingto his conviction with great pertinacity and skill.Inside the Inn of the Seven Devils, on this heavy day of early autumn,seven men were sitting. It was an odd chance, and the men had joked aboutit heavily--there was one man for each devil of the Inn's name. Six ofthese men were grouped about a table furnished with flagons and beakers,and were doing their best to alleviate the external heat by copiousdraughts of the rough but not unkindly native wine which Martine, theplain-faced maid of the Inn, dispensed generously enough from a ruddyearthenware pitcher. A stranger entering the room would, at the firstglance, have taken the six men seated around the table for soldiers, forall were stalwart fellows, with broad bodies and long limbs, bronzedfaces and swaggering carriage, and behind them where they sat six greatrapiers dangled from nails in the wall, rapiers which the revellers hadremoved from their sides for their greater ease and comfort. But if thesuppositious stranger were led to study the men a little more closely, hewould be tempted to correct his first impression. The swaggering carriageof the men lacked something of the stiffness inevitably to be associatedwith military training in the days when the levies of the Sun-King wereheld, or at least held themselves to be, the finest troops in Europe, acheerful opinion which no amount of military misfortune could dissipate.