a poor king. And learn from me, sire, that
bad kings are hated by their people, and poor kings are driven
ignominiously away.' That is what I had to say to you, sire; you are
wrong to have driven me to do it."

The king threw himself back in his chair, cold as death, and livid as a
corpse. Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet, he could not have been
more astonished; he seemed as if his respiration had utterly ceased, and
that he was at the point of death. The honest voice of sincerity, as
D'Artagnan had called it, had pierced through his heart like a sword
blade.

D'Artagnan had said all he had to say. Comprehending the king's anger,
he drew his sword, and, approaching Louis XIV. respectfully, he placed
it on the table. But the king, with a furious gesture, thrust aside the
sword, which fell on the ground and rolled to D'Artagnan's feet.
Notwithstanding the perfect mastery which D'Artagnan exercised over
himself, he, too, in his turn, became pale, and, trembling with
indignation, said, "A king may disgrace a soldier--he may exile him, and
may even condemn him to death; but were he a hundred times a king, he
has no right to insult him by casting a dishonor upon his sword! Sire, a
king of France has never repulsed with contempt the sword of a man such
as I am! Stained with disgrace as this sword now is, it has henceforth
no other sheath than either your heart or my own; I choose my own, sire;
and you have to thank Heaven and my own patience that I do so." Then
snatching up his sword, he cried, "My blood be upon your head!" and with
a rapid gesture he placed the hilt upon the floor and directed the point
of the blade toward his breast. The king, however, with a movement far
more rapid than that of D'Artagnan, threw his right arm round the
musketeer's neck, and with his left hand seized hold of the blade by the
middle, and returned it silently to the scabbard. D'Artagnan, upright,
pale, and still trembling, let the king do all to the very end. Louis,
overcome and softened by gentler feelings, returned to the table, took a
pen in his hand, wrote a few lines, signed them, and then held it out to
D'Artagnan.

"What is this paper, sire?" inquired the captain.

"An order for M. d'Artagnan to set the Comte de la Fere at liberty
immediately."

D'Artagnan seized the king's hand and imprinted a kiss upon it; he then
folded the order, placed it in his belt, and quitted the room. Neither
the king nor the captain had said a sylla