"Very well, monsieur--do it at once!"

"No, sire; for there is no question of my resignation at the present
moment. Your majesty took up your pen just now to send me to the
Bastille--why should you change your intention?"

"D'Artagnan! Gascon that you are! who is the king, allow me to ask--you
or myself?"

"You, sire, unfortunately."

"What do you mean by 'unfortunately'?"

"Yes, sire; for if it were I--"

"If it were you, you would approve of M. d'Artagnan's rebellious
conduct, I suppose?"

"Certainly."

"Really!" said the king, shrugging his shoulders.

"And I should tell my captain of the musketeers," continued D'Artagnan,
"I should tell him, looking at him all the while with human eyes, and
not with eyes like coals of fire, 'M. d'Artagnan, I had forgotten that I
was the king, for I descended from my throne in order to insult a
gentleman.'"

"Monsieur," said the king, "do you think you can excuse your friend by
exceeding him in insolence?"

"Oh, sire! I should go much farther than he did," said D'Artagnan; "and
it would be your own fault. I should tell you what he, a man full of the
finest sense of delicacy, did not tell you; I should say--'Sire, you
have sacrificed his son, and he defended his son--you sacrificed
himself; he addressed you in the name of honor, of religion, of
virtue--you repulsed, drove him away, imprisoned him.' I should be
harder than he was, for I should say to you--'Sire, it is for you to
choose. Do you wish to have friends or lackeys--soldiers or
slaves--great men or mere puppets? Do you wish men to serve you, or to
bend and crouch before you? Do you wish men to love you or to be afraid
of you? If you prefer baseness, intrigue, cowardice, say so at once,
sire, and we will leave you--we who are the only individuals who are
left--nay, I will say more, the only models of the valor of former
times; we who have done our duty, and have exceeded, perhaps, in courage
and in merit, the men already great for posterity. Choose, sire, and
that too without delay. Whatever remains to you of great nobles, guard
it with a jealous eye; you will never be deficient in courtiers. Delay
not--and send me to the Bastille with my friend; for, if you have not
known how to listen to the Comte de la Fere, whose voice is the sweetest
and noblest when honor is his theme; if you do not know how to listen to
D'Artagnan, the frankest and honestest voice of sincerity, you are a bad
king, and to-morrow will be