the iron cage that M.
Colbert had prepared for him, and is galloping as fast as four strong
horses can drag him, towards Angers."

"Why did you leave him on the road?"

"Because your majesty did not tell me to go to Angers. The proof, the
best proof of what I advance, is that the king desired me to be sought
for but this minute. And then I had another reason."

"What is that?"

"Whilst I was with him, poor M. Fouquet would never attempt to escape."

"Well!" cried the king, astonished.

"Your majesty ought to understand, and does understand, certainly, that
my warmest wish is to know that M. Fouquet is at liberty. I have
given him one of my brigadiers, the most stupid I could find among my
musketeers, in order that the prisoner might have a chance of escaping."

"Are you mad, Monsieur d'Artagnan?" cried the king, crossing his arms
on his breast. "Do people utter such enormities, even when they have the
misfortune to think them?"

"Ah! sire, you cannot expect that I should be an enemy to M. Fouquet,
after what he has just done for you and me. No, no; if you desire that
he should remain under your lock and bolt, never give him in charge to
me; however closely wired might be the cage, the bird would, in the end,
take wing."

"I am surprised," said the king, in his sternest tone, "you did not
follow the fortunes of the man M. Fouquet wished to place upon my
throne. You had in him all you want--affection, gratitude. In my
service, monsieur, you will only find a master."

"If M. Fouquet had not gone to seek you in the Bastile, sire," replied
D'Artagnan, with a deeply impressive manner, "one single man would have
gone there, and I should have been that man--you know that right well,
sire."

The king was brought to a pause. Before that speech of his captain of
the musketeers, so frankly spoken and so true, the king had nothing to
offer. On hearing D'Artagnan, Louis remembered the D'Artagnan of former
times; him who, at the Palais Royal, held himself concealed behind the
curtains of his bed, when the people of Paris, led by Cardinal de Retz,
came to assure themselves of the presence of the king; the D'Artagnan
whom he saluted with his hand at the door of his carriage, when
repairing to Notre Dame on his return to Paris; the soldier who had
quitted his service at Blois; the lieutenant he had recalled to be
beside his person when the death of Mazarin restored his power; the man
he had always found loyal, courageous, d