“Madame,” resumed Athos, “two of my friends, named D’Artagnan and Monsieur du Vallon, sent to England by the cardinal, suddenly disappeared when they set foot on the shores of France; no one knows what has become of them.”
“Well?” said the queen.
“I address myself, therefore, first to the benevolence of your majesty, that I may know what has become of my friends, reserving to myself, if 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.”