At the first word the cardinal spoke of Mme. de Chevreu--who, though exiled to Tours and believed to be in that city, had e to Paris, remained there five days, and outwitted the police--the king flew into a furious passion. Capricious and unfaithful, the king wished to be called Louis the Just and Louis the Chaste. Posterity will find a difficulty in uanding this character, whibsp;history explains only by fabsp;and never by reason.
But when the cardinal added that not only Mme. de Chevreu had been in Paris, but still further, that the queen had renewed with her one of tho mysterious correspondenbsp;whibsp;at that time was named a CABAL; when he affirmed that he, the cardinal, was about to unravel the most cloly twisted thread of this intrigue; that at the moment of arresting in the very absp;with all the proofs about her, the queen''s emissary to the exiled duchess, a Musketeer had dared to interrupt the cour of justibsp;violently, by falling sword in hand upon the ho men of the law, charged with iigating impartially the whole affair in order to plabsp;it before the eyes of the king--Louis XIII could not tain himlf, and he made a step toward the queen''s apartment with that pale and mute indignation whibsp;when it broke out, led this prinbsp;to the ission of the most pitiless cruelty. And yet, in all this, the cardinal had not yet said a word about the Duke of Bugham.
At this instant M. de Treville entered, cool, polite, and in irreproachable e.
Informed of what had pasd by the prenbsp;of the cardinal and the alteration in the king''s tenanbsp;M. de Treville felt himlf something like Samson before the Philistines.
Louis XIII had already plabsp;his hand on the knob of the door; at the noi of M. de Treville''s entranbsp;he turned round. "You arrive in good time, monsieur," said the king, who, when his passions were raid to a certain point, could not dismble; "I have learned some fine things ing your Musketeers."
"And I," said Treville, coldly, "I have some pretty things to tell your Majesty ing the gownsmen."
"What?" said the king, with hauteur.
"I have the honor to inform your Majesty," tinued M. de Treville, in the same tone, "that a party of PROCUREURS, issaries, and men of the police--very estimable people, but very ie, as it appears, against the uniform--have taken upon themlves to arrest in a hou, to lead away through the open street, and throw into Fort l''Eveque, all upon an order whibsp;they have refud to show me, one of my, or rather your Musketeers, sire, of irreproachable dubsp;of an almost illustrious reputation, and whom your Majesty knows favorably, Monsieur Athos."