Then the duke said openly that his dog had been killed by a drug with which they meant to poison him; and one day after dinner he went to bed, calling out that he had pains in his stomach and that Mazarin had poisoned him.
Every kind of revenge was practiced upon the duke by the governor in return for the insults of the innocent Pistache.
Sometimes, when Monsieur de Chavigny paid him a visit, the duke used to ask him what he should think if he saw an army of Parisians, all fully armed, appear at Vincennes to deliver him from prison.
And in his turn the duke bowed low to Monsieur de Chavigny.
La Ramee became, therefore, the duke's dinner guest by compulsion -- an eternal keeper, the shadow of his person; but La Ramee -- gay, frank, convivial, fond of play, a great hand at tennis, had one defect in the duke's eyes -- his incorruptibility.
