d! _Mordioux!_ Sire, if my name was Fouquet, and people treated
me in that manner, I would swallow at a single gulp all sorts of
fireworks and other things, and I would set fire to them, and send
myself and everybody else in blown-up atoms to the sky. But it is all
the same; it is your wish, and it shall be done."

"Go," said the king; "but have you men enough?"

"Do you suppose I am going to take a whole host to help me? Arrest M.
Fouquet! why, that is so easy that a very child might do it! It is like
drinking a glass of wormwood; one makes an ugly face, and that is all."

"If he defends himself?"

"He! it is not at all likely. Defend himself when such extreme harshness
as you are going to practice makes the man a very martyr! Nay, I am sure
that if he has a million of francs left, which I very much doubt, he
would be willing enough to give it in order to have such a termination
as this. But what does that matter? it shall be done at once."

"Stay," said the king; "do not make his arrest a public affair."

"That will be more difficult."

"Why so?"

"Because nothing is easier than to go up to M. Fouquet in the midst of
a thousand enthusiastic guests who surround him, and say, 'In the king's
name, I arrest you.' But to go up to him, to turn him first one way
and then another, to drive him up into one of the corners of the
chess-board, in such a way that he cannot escape; to take him away from
his guests, and keep him a prisoner for you, without one of them, alas!
having heard anything about it; that, indeed, is a genuine difficulty,
the greatest of all, in truth; and I hardly see how it is to be done."

"You had better say it is impossible, and you will have finished much
sooner. Heaven help me, but I seem to be surrounded by people who
prevent me doing what I wish."

"I do not prevent your doing anything. Have you indeed decided?"

"Take care of M. Fouquet, until I shall have made up my mind by
to-morrow morning."

"That shall be done, sire."

"And return, when I rise in the morning, for further orders; and now
leave me to myself."

"You do not even want M. Colbert, then?" said the musketeer, firing his
last shot as he was leaving the room. The king started. With his whole
mind fixed on the thought of revenge, he had forgotten the cause and
substance of the offense.

"No, no one," he said; "no one here! Leave me."

D'Artagnan quitted the room. The king closed the door with his own
hands, and began to