"In a quarter of hour it will be over. I know the mob, madam; it is a great baby that only wants flattery and caresses. Before the king, these noisy rioters will be mute and timid as lambs."
"Go, Laporte," said the queen. The young king approached his mother.
"Why do you do what these people ask?" said he.
"It must be so, my son," said Anne of Austria.
"But if they can tell me that it must be so, I am no longer king."
The queen remained silent.
"Sire," said D'Artagnan, "will your majesty permit me to ask you a question?"
"Yes, sir," replied Louis, after a moment's pause, occasioned by surprise at the guardsman's boldness.
"Does our majesty remember, when playing in the park at Fontaine-bleau, or the gardens at Versailles, to have seen the heavens become clouded, and to have heard the thunder roll?"
"Certainly I do," answered Louis.