art before you, sire, and I cast at the
feet of your majesty the pent-up indignation of thirty years, as I would
pour out all my blood, if your majesty commanded me to do so."

The king, without speaking a word, wiped the drops of cold and abundant
perspiration which trickled from his temples. The moment of silence
which followed this vehement outbreak represented for him who had
spoken, and for him who had listened, ages of suffering.

"Monsieur," said the king at length, "you spoke the word forgetfulness.
I have heard nothing but that word; I will reply, then, to it alone.
Others have perhaps been able to forget, but I have not, and the proof
is, that I remember that one day of riot, that one day when the furious
people, raging and roaring as the sea, invaded the royal palace; that
one day when I feigned sleep in my bed, one man alone, naked sword in
hand, concealed behind my curtain, watched over my life, ready to risk
his own for me, as he had before risked it twenty times for the lives of
my family. Was not the gentleman, whose name I then demanded, called M.
d'Artagnan? say, monsieur."

"Your majesty has a good memory," replied the officer, coldly.

"You see, then," continued the king, "if I have such remembrances of my
childhood, what an amount I may gather in the age of reason."

"Your majesty has been richly endowed by God," said the officer, in the
same tone.

"Come, Monsieur d'Artagnan," continued Louis, with feverish agitation,
"ought you not to be patient as I am? Ought you not to do as I do?
Come!"

"And what do you do, sire?"

"I wait."

"Your majesty may do so, because you are young; but I, sire, have not
time to wait; old age is at my door, and death is behind it, looking
into the very depths of my house. Your majesty is beginning life, its
future is full of hope and fortune; but I, sire, I am on the other side
of the horizon, and we are so far from each other, that I should never
have time to wait till your majesty came up to me."

Louis made another turn in his apartment, still wiping the moisture from
his brow, in a manner that would have terrified his physicians, if his
physicians had witnessed the state his majesty was in.

"It is very well, monsieur," said Louis XIV., in a sharp voice; "you are
desirous of having your discharge, and you shall have it. You offer me
your resignation of the rank of lieutenant of the musketeers?"

"I deposit it humbly at your majesty's feet, sire."

"T