lOUISB DE LA VALLIEKE. 11? "Sire, your majesty commanded me to go and explore the place where the crossroads meet in the Bois-Rochin, and to report to you, according to my own ideas, what had taken place there. I submitted my observations to you, but without denouncing any one. It was your majesty yourself who was the first to name the Comte de Guiche." "Well, monsieur, well," said the king haughtily; "you have done your duty, and I am satisfied with you. But you. Monsieur de Manicamp, have failed in yours, for you have told me a falsehood." "A falsehood, sire? The expression is a hard one." "Find another instead, then." "Sire, I will not attempt to do so. I have already been unfortunate enough to displease your majesty, and it will, in every respect, be far better for me to accept most humbly any reproaches you may think proper to address to me." "You are right, monsieur; whoever conceals the truth from me risks my displeasure." "Sometimes, sire, one is ignorant of the truth." "No further falsehood, monsieur, or I double the punish- ment." Manicamp bowed and turned pale. D'Artagnan again made another step forward, determined to interfere, if the still increasing anger of the king attained certain limits. "You see, monsieur," continued the king, "that it is useless to deny the thing any longer. Monsieur de Guiche has fought a duel." "I do not deny it, sire, and it would have been generous in your majesty not to have forced me to tell a falsehood." "Forced? Who forced you?" "Sire, Monsieur de Guiche is my friend. Your majesty has forbidden duels under pain of death. A falsehood might save my friend's life, and I told it." "Good!" murmured D'Artagnan, "an excellent fellow, upon my word!" "Instead of telling a falsehood, monsieur, you should have prevented him from fighting," said the king. "Oh, sire, your majesty, who is the most accomplished gentleman in France, knows quite as well as any of us other gentlemen that we have never considered Monsieur de Botteville dishonored for having suffered death on the Place de Greve. That which does, in truth, dishonor a man is to avoid meeting his enemy, and not to avoid meet- ing his executioner." "Well, monsieur, that may be so," said Louis XIV.; "I ara very desirous of suggesting a means of your repairing all."
