He gave the necessary order at the door; but, returning to the king, he said, "Is there something fresh the matter, your majesty ?" "How many men have you here ?" inquired the king, without making any other reply to the question addressed to him.
"What for, sire ?" "How many men have you, I say ?" repeated the king, stamping upon the ground with his foot.
"I have the musketeers." "Well; and what others ?" "Twenty guards and thirteen Swiss." "How many men will be required to--" "To do what, sire ?" replied the musketeer, opening his large, calm eyes.
"To arrest M.Fouquet." D'Artagnan fell back a step.
"To arrest M.Fouquet!" he burst forth.
"Are you going to tell me that it is impossible ?" exclaimed the king, in tones of cold, vindictive passion.
"I never say that anything is impossible," replied D'Artagnan, wounded to the quick.
"Very well; do it, then." D'Artagnan turned on his heel, and made his way towards the door; it was but a short distance, and he cleared it in half a dozen paces; when he reached it he suddenly paused, and said, "Your majesty will forgive me, but, in order to effect this arrest, I should like written directions." "For what purpose--and since when has the king's word been insufficient for you ?" "Because the word of a king, when it springs from a feeling of anger, may possibly change when the feeling changes." "A truce to set phrases, monsieur; you have another thought besides that ?" "Oh, I, at least, have certain thoughts and ideas, which, unfortunately, others have not," D'Artagnan replied, impertinently.
The king, in the tempest of his wrath, hesitated, and drew back in the face of D'Artagnan's frank courage, just as a horse crouches on his haunches under the strong hand of a bold and experienced rider.

"What is your thought ?" he exclaimed.
"This, sire," replied D'Artagnan: "you cause a man to be arrested when you are still under his roof; and passion is alone the cause of that.
When your anger shall have passed, you will regret what you have done; and then I wish to be in a position to show you your signature.

If that, however, should fail to be a reparation, it will at least show us that the king was wrong to lose his temper." "Wrong to lose his temper!" cried the king, in a loud, passionate voice.
"Did not my father, my grandfathers, too, before me, lose their temper at times, in Heaven's name ?" "The king your father and the king your grandfather never lost their temper except when under the protection of their own palace." "The king is master wherever he may be." "That is a flattering, complimentary phrase which cannot proceed from any one but M.Colbert; but it happens not to be the truth.

The king is at home in every man's house when he has driven its owner out of it." The king bit his lips, but said nothing.
"Can it be possible ?" said D'Artagnan; "here is a man who is positively ruining himself in order to please you, and you wish to have him arrested! _Mordioux!_ Sire, if my name was Fouquet, and people treated me in that manner, I would swallow at a single gulp all sorts of fireworks and other things, and I would set fire to them, and send myself and everybody else in blown-up atoms to the sky.

But it is all the same; it is your wish, and it shall be done." "Go," said the king; "but have you men enough ?" "Do you suppose I am going to take a whole host to help me?
Arrest M.
Fouquet! why, that is so easy that a very child might do it! It is like drinking a glass of wormwood; one makes an ugly face, and that is all." "If he defends himself ?" "He! it is not at all likely.