“Forgetfulness, forgetfulness everywhere!” cried the officer, with a noble air; “the master has forgotten the servant, so the servant is reduced to forget his master.  I live in unfortunate times, sire.  I see youth full of discouragement and fear, I see it timid and despoiled, when it ought to be rich and powerful.  I yesterday evening, for example, open the door to a king of England, whose father, humble as I am, I was near saving, if God had not been against me — God, who inspired His elect, Cromwell!  I open, I said, the door, that is to say, the palace of one brother to another brother, and I see — stop, sire, that is a load on my heart! — I see the minister of that king drive away the proscribed prince, and humiliate his master by condemning to want another king, his equal.  Then I see my prince, who is young, handsome and brave, who has courage in his heart and lightening in his eye, — I see him tremble before a priest, who laughs at him behind the curtain of his alcove, where he digests all the gold of France, which he afterwards stuffs into secret coffers.  Yes — I understand your looks, sire.  I am bold to madness; but what is to be said?  I am an old man, and I tell you here, sire, to you, my king, things which I would cram down the throat of any one who should dare to pronounce them before me.  You have commanded me, to pour out the bottom of my heart before you, sire, and I cast at the feet of your majesty the pent-up indignation of thirty years, as I would pour out all my blood, if your majesty commanded me to do so.”

The king, without speaking a word, wiped the drops of cold and abundant perspiration which trickled from his temples.  The moment of silence which followed this vehement outbreak represented for him who had spoken, and for him who had listened, ages of suffering.

“Monsieur,” said the king at length, “you spoke the word forgetfulness.  I have heard nothing but that word; I will reply, then, to it alone.  Others have perhaps been able to forget, but I have not, and the proof is, that I remember that one day of riot, that one day when the furious people, raging and roaring as the sea, invaded the royal palace; that one day when I feigned sleep in my bed, one man alone, naked sword in hand, concealed behind my curtain, watched over my life, ready to risk his own for me, as he had before risked it twenty times for the lives of my family.  Was not the gentleman, whose name I then demanded, called M. d’Artagnan? say, monsieur.”

“Your majesty has a good memory,” replied the officer, coldly.

“You see, then,” continued the king, “if I have such remembrances of my childhood, what an amount I may gather in the age of reason.”

“Your majesty has been richly endowed by God,” said the officer, in the same tone.

“Come, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued Louis, with feverish agitation, “ought you not to be patient as I am?  Ought you not to do as I do?  Come!”