“D’Epernon!”

“My zeal for your majesty doubles my imagination.”

“Well, let us hear it.”

“If it depended upon me, each of these gentlemen should find by his bed a purse containing 1,000 crowns, as payment for the first six months.”

“One thousand crowns for six months! 6,000 livres a year!  You are mad, duke; an entire regiment would not cost that.”

“You forget, sire, that it is necessary they should be well dressed.  Each will have to take from his 1,000 crowns enough for arms and equipments.  Set down 1,500 livres to effect this in a manner to do you honor, and there would remain 4,500 livres for the first year.  Then for subsequent years you could give 3,000 livres.”

“That is more reasonable.”

“Then your majesty accepts?”

“There is only one difficulty, duke.”

“What is it?”

“Want of money.”

“Sire, I have found a method.  Six months ago a tax was levied on shooting and fishing.”

“Well?”

“The first payment produced 65,000 crowns, which have not yet been disposed of.”

“I destined it for the war, duke.”

“The first interest of the kingdom is the safety of the king.”

“Well; there still would remain 20,000 crowns for the army.”

“Pardon, sire, but I had disposed of them, also.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, sire; your majesty had promised me money.”

“Ah! and you give me a guard to obtain it.”

“Oh! sire.  But look at them; will they not have a good effect?”

“Yes, when dressed, they will not look bad.  Well, so be it.”

“Well, then, sire, I have a favor to ask.”

“I should be astonished if you had not.”

“Your majesty is bitter to-day.”

“Oh!  I only mean, that having rendered me a service, you have the right to ask for a return.”

“Well, sire, it is an appointment.”

“Why, you are already colonel-general of infantry, more would crush you.”

“In your majesty’s service, I am a Samson.”

“What is it, then?”

“I desire the command of these forty-five gentlemen.”

“What! you wish to march at their head?”

“No; I should have a deputy; only I desire that they should know me as their head.”

“Well, you shall have it.  But who is to be your deputy?”

“M. de Loignac, sire.”

“Ah! that is well.”

“He pleases your majesty?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then it is decided?”

“Yes; let it be as you wish.”

“Then I will go at once to the treasurer, and get my forty-five purses.”

“To-night?”

“They are to find them to-morrow, when they wake.”

“Good; then I will return.”

“Content, sire?”

“Tolerably.”

“Well guarded, at all events.”

“By men who sleep.”