My heart began to rise.

But, for the Marquis, as we mounted the staircase the anxiety he had dissembled while we faced the Provost-Marshal, broke out in angry mutterings; from which I gathered that the crisis was yet to come.

I was not surprised, therefore, when an usher rose on our appearance in the antechamber, and, quickly crossing the floor, interposed between us and the door of the chamber, informing the Marquis with a low obeisance that his Majesty was engaged.
'He will see me,' M.de Rambouillet cried, looking haughtily round on the sneering pages and lounging courtiers, who grew civil under his eye.
'I have particular orders, sir, to admit so one,' the man answered.
'Tut, tut, they do not apply to me,' my companion retorted, nothing daunted.

'I know the business on which the king is engaged, and I am here to assist him.' And raising his hand he thrust the startled official aside, and hardily pushed the doors of the chamber open.
The king, surrounded by half a dozen persons, was in the act of putting on his riding-boots.

On hearing us, he turned his head with a startled air, and dropped in his confusion one of the ivory cylinders he was using; while his aspect, and that of the persons who stood round him, reminded me irresistibly of a party of schoolboys detected in a fault.
He recovered himself, it is true, almost immediately; and turning his back to us?
continued to talk to the persons round him on such trifling subjects as commonly engaged him.