icamp bowed very gracefully, unbuckled his sword, smiling as he did
so, and handed it for the musketeer to take. But Saint-Aignan advanced
hurriedly between him and D'Artagnan. "Sire," he said, "will your
majesty permit me to say a word?"

"Do so," said the king, delighted perhaps at the bottom of his heart for
some one to step between him and the wrath which he felt had carried him
too far.

"Manicamp, you are a brave man, and the king will appreciate your
conduct; but to wish to serve your friends too well is to destroy them.
Manicamp, you know the name the king asks you for?"

"It is perfectly true--I do know it."

"You will give it up then?"

"If I felt I ought to have mentioned it, I should have already done so."

"Then I will tell it, for I am not so extremely sensitive on such points
of honor as you are."

"You are at liberty to do so, but it seems to me, however--"

"Oh! a truce to magnanimity; I will not permit you to go to the Bastille
in that way. Do you speak; or I will."

Manicamp was keen-witted enough, and perfectly understood that he had
done quite sufficient to produce a good opinion of his conduct: it was
now only a question of persevering in such a manner as to regain the
good graces of the king. "Speak, monsieur," he said to Saint-Aignan: "I
have on my own behalf done all that my conscience told me to do, and it
must have been very importunate," he added, turning toward the king,
"since its mandates led me to disobey your majesty's commands; but your
majesty will forgive me, I hope, when you learn that I was anxious to
preserve the honor of a lady."

"Of a lady?" said the king, with some uneasiness.

"Yes, sire."

"A lady was the cause of this duel?"

Manicamp bowed.

"If the position of the lady in question warrants it," he said, "I shall
not complain of your having acted with so much circumspection; on the
contrary, indeed."

"Sire, everything which concerns your majesty's household, or the
household of your majesty's brother, is of importance in my eyes."

"In my brother's household," repeated Louis XIV., with a slight
hesitation. "The cause of the duel was a lady belonging to my brother's
household, do you say?"

"Or to Madame's."

"Ah! to Madame's?"

"Yes, sire."

"Well--and this lady?"

"Is one of the maids of honor of her royal highness, Madame la Duchesse
d'Orleans."

"For whom M. de Guiche fought--do you say?"

"Yes, sire, and, this time, I tell no falsehood."