"Monsieur," at length resumed the king, "what did I charge you to go and do at Belle-Isle? Tell me, if you please."
The king, while speaking these words, looked fixedly at his captain. Here D'Artagnan was too fortunate; the king seemed to place the game in his hands.
"I believe," replied he, "that your majesty does me the honor to ask what I went to Belle-Isle to do?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Well! sire, I know nothing about it; it is not of me that question should be asked, but of that infinite number of officers of all kinds to whom have been given an infinite number of orders of all kinds, while to me, head of the expedition, nothing precise was ordered."
The king was wounded; he showed it by his reply. "Monsieur," said he, "orders have only been given to such as were judged faithful."
"And, therefore, I have been astonished, sire," retorted the musketeer, "that a captain like myself, who rank with a maréchal of France, should have found himself under the orders of five or six lieutenants or majors, good to make spies of, possibly, but not at all fit to conduct warlike expeditions. It was upon this subject I came to demand an explanation of your majesty, when I found the door closed against me, which, the last insult offered to a brave man, has led me to quit your majesty's service."
"Monsieur," replied the king, "you still believe you are living in an age when kings were, as you complain of having been, under the orders and at the discretion of their inferiors. You appear too much to forget that a king owes an account of his actions to none but God."
"I forget nothing at all, sire," said the musketeer, wounded by this lesson. "Besides, I do not see in what an honest man, when he asks of his king how he has ill served him, offends him."
"You have ill served me, monsieur, by taking part with my enemies against me."