Colbert in his calm voice replied, “Where would your Majesty desire him to be sought for?”
“Eh, Monsieur! do you not know to what place I have sent him?” replied Louis, acrimoniously.
“Your Majesty has not told me.”
“Monsieur, there are things that are to be guessed; and you, above all others, do guess them.”
“I might have been able to imagine, Sire; but I do not presume to be positive.”
Colbert had not finished these words when a much rougher voice than the King’s interrupted the interesting conversation thus begun between Louis and his clerk.
“D’Artagnan!” cried the King, with evident joy.
D’Artagnan, pale and in furious humor, cried to the King as he entered, “Sire, is it your Majesty who has given orders to my Musketeers?”
“What orders?” said the King.
“About M. Fouquet’s house?”
“None!” replied Louis.
“Ah, ah!” said d’Artagnan, biting his mustache; “I was not mistaken, then; it was Monsieur here!” and he pointed to Colbert.
“What orders? Let me know,” said the King.
“Orders to turn a house inside out, to beat M. Fouquet’s servants, to force the drawers, to give over a peaceful house to pillage! Mordioux! the orders of a savage I
“Monsieur!” said Colbert, becoming pale.
“Monsieur,” interrupted d’Artagnan, “the King alone, understand,- the King alone has a right to command my Musketeers; but as to you, I forbid you to do it, and I tell you so before his Majesty. Gentlemen who wear swords are not fellows with pens behind their ears.”
“D’Artagnan! d’Artagnan!” murmured the King.
“It is humiliating,” continued the musketeer; “my soldiers are disgraced. I do not command reitres, nor clerks of the intendance, mordioux!”
“Well; but what is all this about?” said the King, with authority.
“About this, Sire: Monsieur- Monsieur, who could not guess your Majesty’s orders, and consequently could not know I was gone to arrest M. Fouquet; Monsieur, who has caused the iron cage to be constructed for his patron of yesterday- has sent M. de Roncherat to the lodgings of M. Fouquet, and under pretence of taking away the superintendent’s papers they have taken away the furniture. My Musketeers have been placed round the house all the morning; such were my orders. Why did any one presume to order them to enter? Why, by forcing them to assist in this pillage, have they been made accomplices in it? Mordioux! we serve the King, we do; but we do not serve M. Colbert!”
“M. d’Artagnan,” said the King, sternly, “take care! It is not in my presence that such explanations, and made in this tone, should take place.”
“I have acted for the good of the King,” said Colbert, in a faltering voice; “it is hard to be so treated by one of your Majesty’s officers, and that without vengeance, on account of the respect I owe the King.”
“The respect you owe the King,” cried d’Artagnan, his eyes flashing fire, “consists in the first place in making his authority respected and his person beloved. Every agent of a power without control represents that power, and when people curse the hand which strikes them, it is to the royal hand that God makes the reproach, do you hear? Must a soldier hardened by forty years of wounds and blood give you this lesson, Monsieur? Must mercy be on my side, and ferocity on yours? You have caused the innocent to be arrested, bound, and imprisoned!”
“The accomplices, perhaps, of M. Fouquet,” said Colbert.
“Who told you that M. Fouquet had accomplices, or even that he was guilty? The King alone knows that; his justice is not blind! When he shall say, ‘Arrest and imprison’ such and such people, then he shall be obeyed. Do not talk to me then any more of the respect you owe the King; and be careful of your words, that they may not chance to convey any menace,- for the King will not allow those to be threatened who do him service by others who do him disservice. And in case I should have- which God forbid!- a master so ungrateful, I would make myself respected.”
Thus saying, d’Artagnan took his station haughtily in the King’s cabinet, his eye flashing, his hand on his sword, his lips trembling, affecting much more anger than he really felt. Colbert, humiliated and devoured with rage, bowed to the King as if to ask his permission to leave the room. The King, drawn in opposite directions by his pride and by his curiosity, knew not which part to take. D’Artagnan saw him hesitate. To remain longer would have been an error; it was necessary to obtain a triumph over Colbert, and the only means was to touch the King so near and so strongly to the quick that his Majesty would have no other means of extricating himself but by choosing between the two antagonists. D’Artagnan then bowed as Colbert had done; but the King, who in preference to everything else was anxious to have all the exact details of the arrest of the Superintendent of the Finances from him who had made him tremble for a moment,- the King, perceiving that the ill-humor of d’Artagnan would put off for half an hour at least the details he was burning to be acquainted with,- Louis, we say, forgot Colbert, who had nothing new to tell him, and recalled his captain of the Musketeers. “In the first place,” said he, “let me see the result of your commission, Monsieur; you may repose afterwards.”