necessary, the right of appealing hereafter to your justice."

"Sir," replied Anne, with a degree of haughtiness which to certain
persons became impertinence, "this is the reason that you trouble me in
the midst of so many absorbing concerns! an affair for the police! Well,
sir, you ought to know that we no longer have a police, since we are no
longer at Paris."

"I think your majesty will have no need to apply to the police to know
where my friends are, but that if you will deign to interrogate the
cardinal he can reply without any further inquiry than into his own
recollections."

"But, God forgive me!" cried Anne, with that disdainful curl of the lips
peculiar to her, "I believe that you are yourself interrogating."

"Yes, madame, here I have a right to do so, for it concerns Monsieur
d'Artagnan---d'Artagnan," he repeated, in such a manner as to bow the
regal brow with recollections of the weak and erring woman.

The cardinal saw that it was now high time to come to the assistance of
Anne.

"Sir," he said, "I can tell you what is at present unknown to her
majesty. These individuals are under arrest. They disobeyed orders."

"I beg of your majesty, then," said Athos, calmly and not replying to
Mazarin, "to quash these arrests of Messieurs d'Artagnan and du Vallon."

"What you ask is merely an affair of discipline and does not concern
me," said the queen.

"Monsieur d'Artagnan never made such an answer as that when the service
of your majesty was concerned," said Athos, bowing with great dignity.
He was going toward the door when Mazarin stopped him.

"You, too, have been in England, sir?" he said, making a sign to the
queen, who was evidently going to issue a severe order.

"I was a witness of the last hours of Charles I. Poor king! culpable, at
the most, of weakness, how cruelly punished by his subjects! Thrones are
at this time shaken and it is to little purpose for devoted hearts to
serve the interests of princes. This is the second time that Monsieur
d'Artagnan has been in England. He went the first time to save the honor
of a great queen; the second, to avert the death of a great king."

"Sir," said Anne to Mazarin, with an accent from which daily habits of
dissimulation could not entirely chase the real expression, "see if we
can do something for these gentlemen."

"I wish to do, madame, all that your majesty pleases."

"Do what Monsieur de la Fere requests; that is your name, is it not,
sir?"