“Is it done?” inquired the king.
“Yes, sire,” replied the captain of the musketeers, in a grave voice, “it is done.”
The king was unable to say another word. Pride, however, obliged him not to pause at what he had done; whenever a sovereign has adopted a decisive course, even though it be unjust, he is compelled to prove to all witnesses, and particularly to prove it to himself, that he was quite right all through. A good means for effecting that—an almost infallible means, indeed—is, to try and prove his victim to be in the wrong. Louis, brought up by Mazarin and Anne of Austria, knew better than any one else his vocation as a monarch; he therefore endeavored to prove it on the present occasion. After a few moment’s pause, which he had employed in making silently to himself the same reflections which we have just expressed aloud, he said, in an indifferent tone: “What did the comte say?”
“Nothing at all, sire.”
“Surely he did not allow himself to be arrested without saying something?”
“He said he expected to be arrested, sire.”
The king raised his head haughtily. “I presume,” he said, “that M. le Comte de la Fere has not continued to play his obstinate and rebellious part.”
“In the first place, sire, what do you wish to signify by rebellious?” quietly asked the musketeer. “A rebel, in the eyes of the king, is a man who not only allows himself to be shut up in the Bastile, but still more, who opposes those who do not wish to take him there.”
“Who do not wish to take him there!” exclaimed the king. “What do you say, captain! Are you mad?”
“I believe not, sire.”