“Ah! ah!” said the king, without changing countenance, and casting an oblique look at D’Artagnan. “And your own opinion, M. Colbert?” said he.
Colbert looked at D’Artagnan in his turn. That imposing countenance checked the words upon his lips. Louis perceived this. “Do not disturb yourself,” said he; “it is M. d’Artagnan,—do you not know M. d’Artagnan again?”
These two men looked at each other—D’Artagnan, with eyes open and bright as the day—Colbert, with his half closed, and dim. The frank intrepidity of the one annoyed the other; the circumspection of the financier disgusted the soldier. “Ah! ah! this is the gentleman who made that brilliant stroke in England,” said Colbert. And he bowed slightly to D’Artagnan.
“Ah! ah!” said the Gascon, “this is the gentleman who clipped off the lace from the uniform of the Swiss! A praiseworthy piece of economy.”
The financier thought to pierce the musketeer; but the musketeer ran the financier through.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” resumed the king, who had not remarked all the shades of which Mazarin would have missed not one, “this concerns the farmers of the revenue who have robbed me, whom I am hanging, and whose death-warrants I am about to sign.”
“Oh! oh!” said D’Artagnan, starting.
“What did you say?”
“Oh! nothing, sire. This is no business of mine.”
The king had already taken up the pen, and was applying it to the paper. “Sire,” said Colbert in a subdued voice, “I beg to warn your majesty, that if an example be necessary, there will be difficulty in the execution of your orders.”