“One would say you have forgotten what these men have done to me!” said the King, in a hollow voice, “and that it was no merit of theirs that I was not lost.”
“Sire, one would say that you forget I was there.”
“Enough, M. d’Artagnan, enough of these dominating concerns which arise to keep the sun from my interests. I am founding a state in which there shall be but one master, as promised you formerly; the moment is come for keeping my promise. You wish to be, according to your tastes or your friendships, free to destroy my plans and save my enemies; I will break you, or I will abandon you. Seek a more compliant master. I know full well that another king would not conduct himself as I do, and would allow himself to be dominated over by you at the risk of sending you some day to keep company with M. Fouquet and the others; but I have a good memory, and for me services are sacred titles to gratitude, to impunity. You shall only have this lesson, M. d’Artagnan, as the punishment of your want of discipline; and I will not imitate my predecessors in their anger, not having imitated them in their favor. And then, other reasons make me act mildly towards you: in the first place, because you are a man of sense, a man of great sense, a man of heart, and you will be a good servant to him who shall have mastered you; secondly, because you will cease to have any motives for insubordination. Your friends are destroyed or ruined by me. These supports upon which your capricious mind instinctively relied I have made to disappear. At this moment, my soldiers have taken or killed the rebels of Belle-Isle.”
D’Artagnan became pale. “Taken or killed!” cried he. “Oh, Sire, if you thought what you tell me, if you were sure you were telling me the truth, I should forget all that is just, all that is magnanimous in your words, to call you a barbarous King and an unnatural man. But I pardon you these words,” said he, smiling with pride; “I pardon them to a young Prince who does not know, who cannot comprehend, what such men as M. d’Herblay, M. du Vallon, and myself are. Taken or killed! Ah, ah, Sire! tell me, if the news is true, how much it has cost you in men and money. We will then reckon if the game has been worth the stakes.”
As he spoke thus, the King went up to him in great anger and said, “M. d’Artagnan, your replies are those of a rebel! Tell me, if you please, who is King of France? Do you know any other?”
“Sire,” replied the captain of the Musketeers, coldly, “I remember that one morning at Vaux you addressed that question to people who did not know how to answer it, while I, on my part, did answer it. If I recognized my King on that day, when the thing was not easy, I think it would be useless to ask it of me now, when your Majesty is alone with me.”
At these words, Louis cast down his eyes. It appeared to him that the shade of the unfortunate Philippe passed between d’Artagnan and himself, to evoke the remembrance of that terrible adventure. Almost at the same moment an officer entered and placed a despatch in the hands of the King, who, in his turn, changed color while reading it. “Monsieur,” said he, “what I learn here you would know later; it is better I should tell you, and that you should learn it from the mouth of your King. A battle has taken place at Belle-Isle.”
“Oh! ah!” said d’Artagnan, with a calm air, though his heart beat enough to break through his chest. “Well, Sire?”
“Well, Monsieur; and I have lost a hundred and six men.”
A beam of joy and pride shone in the eyes of d’Artagnan. “And the rebels?”
“The rebels have fled,” said the King.
D’Artagnan could not restrain a cry of triumph. “Only,” added the King, “I have a fleet which closely blockades Belle-Isle, and I am certain no boat can escape.”