“You mean to say that he deceives me; you mean to say that he betrays me? You accuse him, then? Come, speak; avow freely that you accuse him!”
“No, sire, but I say that he deceives himself. I say that he is ill-informed. I say that he has hastily accused Your Majesty’s Musketeers, toward whom he is unjust, and that he has not obtained his information from good sources.”
“The accusation comes from M. de la Trémouille, from the duke himself. What do you say to that?”
“I might answer, sire, that he is too deeply interested in the question to be a very impartial witness; but so far from that, sire, I know the duke to be a royal gentleman, and I refer the matter to him—but upon one condition, sire.”
“What?”
“It is that Your Majesty will make him come here, will interrogate him yourself, tête-à-tête, without witnesses, and that I shall see Your Majesty as soon as you have seen the duke.”
“What, then! You will bind yourself,” cried the king, “by what M. de la Trémouille shall say?”
“Yes, sire.”
“You will accept his judgment?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And you will submit to the reparation he may require?”
“Certainly.”
“La Chesnaye,” said the king. “La Chesnaye!”