"We are speaking of friends; but how can _I_ have any
friends--I, whom no one knows; and have neither liberty, money, nor
influence to gain any?"

"I fancy I had the honor to offer myself to your royal highness."

"Oh, do not style me so, monsieur; 'tis either treachery or cruelty! Bid
me not think of aught else than these prison-walls, which confine me;
let me again love, or, at least, submit to my slavery and my obscurity."

"Monseigneur, monseigneur; if you again utter these desperate words--if,
after having received proof of your high birth, you still remain
poor-spirited in body and soul, I will comply with your desire, I will
depart, and renounce forever the service of a master, to whom so eagerly
I came to devote my assistance and my life!"

"Monsieur," cried the prince, "would it not have been better for you to
have reflected, before telling me all that you have done, that you have
broken my heart forever!"

"And so I desired to do, monseigneur."

"To talk to me about power, grandeur, and even royalty. Is a prison the
fitting place? You wish to make me believe in splendor, and we are lying
hidden in night; you boast of glory, and we are smothering our words in
the curtains of this miserable bed; you give me glimpses of absolute
power, and I hear the step of the jailer in the corridor--that step
which, after all, makes you tremble more than it does me. To render me
somewhat less incredulous, free me from the Bastille; let me breathe the
fresh air; give me my spurs and trusty sword, then we shall begin to
understand each other."

"It is precisely my intention to give you all this, monseigneur, and
more; only, do you desire it?"

"A word more," said the prince. "I know there are guards in every
gallery, bolts to every door, cannon and soldiery at every barrier. How
will you overcome the sentries--spike the guns? How will you break
through the bolts and bars?"

"Monseigneur--how did you get the note which announced my arrival to
you?"

"You can bribe a jailer for such a thing as a note."

"If we can corrupt one turnkey, we can corrupt ten."

"Well; I admit that it may be possible to release a poor captive from
the Bastille; possible so to conceal him that the king's people shall
not again ensnare him; possible, in some unknown retreat, to sustain the
unhappy wretch in some suitable manner."

"Monseigneur!" said Aramis, smiling.

"I admit that, whoever would do thus much for me, would seem more than