- The King feels awful. He hears a sound, looks around the room, and sees an enormous rat.
- He gives an involuntary shout, and then fully realizes he is not dreaming, but actually a prisoner in the Bastille.
- He is convinced Fouquet is behind all of this.
- The King begins shouting for the governor of the Bastille at the top of his lungs, and in general makes a loud ruckus. The other prisoners start getting angry. They need their sleep after all.
- Finally a jailer yells at him to be quiet.
- Louis continues making noise any way he can.
- He begins to despair, then wonders when the first meal is served. He feels guilty that he cannot remember this small detail about his own prison.
- A jailer comes in with food and notes that Louis must have been going quite mad to break all his furniture.
- Louis demands to see the governor and threatens the jailer. The jailer laughs, says Louis is really going crazy, and takes away the knife.
- Louis is left more desperate and angry than before. The narrator notes that within two hours, Louis has been transformed into a madman.
- Baisemeaux is annoyed at all the noise as he sits down to his own breakfast.