“Perhaps even further still.”
“Further? What do you mean?”
“Perhaps to the point of going with him.”
“Which way,- through your own apartments?”
“You think it impossible, Sire? Well, listen to me! Your Majesty knows that Madame is very fond of perfumes?”
“Yes, she acquired that taste from my mother.”
“Vervain particularly.”
“Yes, it is the scent she prefers to all others.”
“Very good, Sire! my apartments smell very strongly of vervain.”
The King remained silent and thoughtful for a few moments, and then resumed: “But why should Madame take Bragelonne’s part against me?” De Saint-Aignan could very easily have replied: “A woman’s jealousy!” In his question the King had probed his friend to the bottom of his heart to ascertain if he had learned the secret of his flirtation with his sister-in-law. But De Saint-Aignan was not an ordinary courtier; he did not lightly run the risk of finding out family secrets; and he was too good a friend of the Muses not to think very frequently of poor Ovidius Naso, whose eyes shed so many tears in expiation of his crime for having once beheld something, one hardly knows what, in the palace of Augustus. He therefore passed by Madame’s secret very skilfully. But since he had exhibited his sagacity in proving Madame’s presence in his rooms with Bragelonne, it was now necessary for him to pay interest on that self-conceit, and reply clearly to the question, “Why has Madame taken Bragelonne’s part against me?”
“Why?” replied De Saint-Aignan. “Your Majesty forgets, I presume, that the Comte de Guiche is the intimate friend of the Vicomte de Bragelonne?”
“I do not see the connection, however,” said the King.
“Ah! I beg your pardon then, Sire; but I thought the Comte de Guiche was a very great friend of Madame.”
“Quite true,” the King returned. “There is no occasion to search any further; the blow came from that direction.”
“And is not your Majesty of the opinion that in order to ward it off it will be necessary to deal another blow?”
“Yes; but not one of the kind given in the Bois de Vincennes,” replied the King.
“You forget, Sire,” said De Saint-Aignan, “that I am a gentleman, and that I have been challenged.”
“The challenge neither concerns nor was it intended for you.”
“But it is I who have been expected at the Minimes, Sire, during the last hour and more; and I shall be dishonored if I do not go there.”
“The first honor and duty of a gentleman is obedience to his sovereign.”
“Sire!”
“I order you to remain.”
“Sire!”
“Obey, Monsieur!”
“As your Majesty pleases.”
“Besides, I wish to have the whole of this affair explained; I wish to know how it is that I have been so insolently trifled with as to have the sanctuary of my affection pried into. It is not you, De Saint-Aignan, who ought to punish those who have acted in this manner; for it is not your honor they have attacked, but my own.”
“I implore your Majesty not to overwhelm M. de Bragelonne with your wrath; for although in the whole of this affair he may have shown himself deficient in prudence, he has not been so in his feelings of loyalty.”
“Enough! I shall know how to decide between the just and the unjust, even in the height of my anger. But take care that not a word of this is breathed to Madame!”
“But what am I to do with regard to M. de Bragelonne? He will be seeking me in every direction, and-”
“I shall either have spoken to him, or taken care that he has been spoken to before the evening is over.”
“Let me once more entreat your Majesty to be indulgent towards him.”
“I have been indulgent long enough, Count,” said Louis XIV, frowning; “it is time to show certain persons that I am master in my own palace.”
The King had hardly pronounced these words, which betokened that a fresh feeling of dissatisfaction was mingled with the remembrance of an old one, when the usher appeared at the door of the cabinet. “What is the matter,” inquired the King, “and why do you presume to come when I have not summoned you?”