"Why do you employ the words, 'if you carry it out well'?"
"Because it is difficult."
"Ah! in what respect?"
"You have friends in Belle-Isle, M. d'Artagnan; and it is not an easy thing for men like you to march over the bodies of their friends to obtain success."
D'Artagnan hung down his head, while Colbert returned to the king. A quarter of an hour after, the captain received the written order from the king to blow up the fortress of Belle-Isle, in case of resistance, with the power of life and death over all the inhabitants or refugees, and an injunction not to allow one to escape.
"Colbert was right," thought D'Artagnan; "my bâton of a maréchal of France will cost the lives of my two friends. Only they seem to forget that my friends are not more stupid than the birds, and that they will not wait for the hand of the fowler to extend their wings. I will show them that hand so plainly, that they will have quite time enough to see it. Poor Porthos! Poor Aramis! No; my fortune shall not cost your wings a feather."
Having thus determined, D'Artagnan assembled the royal army, embarked it at Paimbœuf, and set sail without losing a moment.