The gardener disappeared. “If I wished to do what I should,” said Coctier, “I would treat you like Charles the Bold did when you cheated him.”
“What did he do? What do people say that he did?”
“People say that he beat you with a stick.”
The King was ashamed, went to bed again, and hid his face in the pillow. The Doctor considered this a favourable moment for preferring a long-denied request.
“Will you now liberate the Milanese?” he asked.
“No.”
“But he cannot sit any more in his iron cage!”
“Then let him stand!”
“Don’t you know that when one has to die, one good deed atones for a thousand crimes?”
“I will not die!”