Henceforward, you must have courtiers who know how to amuse you — madmen who will get themselves killed to carry out what you call your great works. Great they will be, I feel — but, if by chance I should not think them so? I have seen war, sire, I have seen peace; I have served Richelieu and Mazarin; I have been scorched with your father, at the fire of Rochelle; riddled with sword-thrusts like a sieve, having grown a new skin ten times, as serpents do. After affronts and injustices, I have a command which was formerly something, because it gave the bearer the right of speaking as he liked to his king. But your captain of the musketeers will henceforward be an officer guarding the outer doors.

Truly, sire, if that is to be my employment from this time, seize the opportunity of our being on good terms, to take