Scarcely had I explained this, than the poor fellow began to take breath,
as though escaping from stifling oppression, or a painful operation for
the stone, and asked me if that was what I wanted?

He promised everything, so glad was he to be let off thus cheaply, and in
truth he kept to his word, both as to the secret and the work. He had
never seen a Bed of justice, and had not the slightest notion what it was
like. I sat down on his bureau, and drew out the design of one. I
dictated to him the explanations in the margin, because I did not wish
them to be in my handwriting. I talked more than an hour with him; I
disarranged his furniture, the better to show to him the order of the
assembly, and explained to him what was to be done, so that all might be
carried to the Tuileries and erected in a very, few moments. When I
found I had made everything sufficiently clear, and he had understood me,
I returned to the Palais Royal as though recollecting something, being
already in the streets, to deceive my people.

A servant awaited me at the top of the staircase, and the concierge of
the Palais Royal at the door of M. le Duc d'Orleans' room, with orders to
beg me to write. It was the sacred hour of the roues and the supper,
at which all idea of business was banished. I wrote, therefore, to the
Regent in his winter cabinet what I had just done, not without some
little indignation that he could not give up his pleasure for an affair
of this importance. I was obliged to beg the concierge not to give my
note to M. le Duc d'Orleans unless he were in a state to read it and to
burn it afterwards.

Our preparations for the Bed of justice continued to be actively but
silently made during the next few days. In the course of the numberless