Your majesty will fatigue yourself."
"You're right; study after eating is very injurious."
"The labor of a poet, especially so: and besides, there is great excitement prevailing at Mademoiselle de la Valliere's."
"What do you mean?"
"With her as with all the ladies of the court."
"Why?"
"On account of poor De Guiche's accident."
"Has anything serious happened to De Guiche, then?"
"Yes, sire, he has one hand nearly destroyed, a hole in his breast: in fact he is dying."
"Good heavens! who told you that?"
"Manicamp brought him back just now to the house of a doctor here in Fontainebleau, and the rumor soon reached us all here."
"Brought back! Poor De Guiche; and how did it happen?"
"Ah! that is the very question, how did it happen?"
"You say that in a very singular manner, Saint-Aignan. Give me the details. What does he say himself?"
"He says nothing, sire: but others do."
"What others?"
"Those who brought him back, sire."
"Who are they?"
"I do not know, sire; but M. de Manicamp knows. M. de Manicamp is one of his friends."
"As everybody is, indeed," said the king.
"Oh! no!" returned Saint-Aignan, "you are mistaken, sire; every one is not precisely friends with M. de Guiche."
"How do you know that?"
"Does your majesty require me to explain myself?"
"Certainly I do."
"Well, sire, I believe I have heard something said about a quarrel between two gentlemen."
"When?"
"This very evening, before your majesty's supper was served."
"That can hardly be. I have issued such stringent and severe ordinances with respect to dueling, that no one, I presume, would dare to disobey them."
"In that case, Heaven preserve me from excusing any one!" exclaimed Saint-Aignan. "Your majesty commanded me to speak, and I spoke accordingly."
"Tell me, then, in what way the Comte de Guiche has been wounded?"
"Sire, it is said to have been at a boar-hunt."
"This evening?"
"Yes, sire."
"One of his hands shattered, and a hole in his breast. Who was at the hunt with M. de Guiche?"
"I do not know, sire; but M. de Manicamp knows, or ought to know."
"You are concealing something from me, Saint-Aignan."
"Nothing, sire, I assure you."
"Then, explain to me how the accident happened; was it a musket that burst?"
"Very likely, sire. But yet, on reflection, it could hardly have been that, for Guiche's pistol was found close by him still loaded."
"His pistol? But a man does not go to a boar-hunt with a pistol, I should think."
"Sire, it is also said that Guiche's horse was killed, and that the horse is still to be found in the wide open glade in the forest."
"His horse?—Guiche go on horseback to a boar-hunt!—Saint-Aignan, I do not understand a syllable of what you have been telling me. Where did the affair happen?"
"At the Rond-point, in that part of the forest called the Bois-Rochin."
"That will do. Call M. d'Artagnan." Saint-Aignan obeyed, and the musketeer entered.
"Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the king, "you will leave this place by the little door of the private staircase."
"Yes, sire."
"You will mount your horse."
"Yes, sire."
"And you will proceed to the Rond-point du Bois-Rochin. Do you know the spot?"
"Yes, sire. I have fought there twice."
"What!" exclaimed the king, amazed at the reply.
"Under the edicts, sire, of Cardinal Richelieu," returned D'Artagnan, with his usual impassibility.
"That is very different, monsieur. You will, therefore, go there, and will examine the locality very carefully. A man has been wounded there, and you will find a horse lying dead. You will tell me what your opinion is upon the whole affair."
"Very good, sire."
"It is a matter of course that it is your own opinion I require, and not that of any one else."
"You shall have it in an hour's time, sire."
"I prohibit your speaking with any one, whoever it may be."
"Except with the person who must give me a lantern," said D'Artagnan.
"Oh! that is a matter of course," said the king, laughing at the liberty, which he tolerated in no one but his captain of musketeers. D'Artagnan left by the little staircase.
"Now, let my physician be sent for," said Louis. Ten minutes afterward the king's physician arrived, quite out of breath.
"You will go, monsieur," said the king to him, "and accompany M. de Saint-Aignan wherever he may take you; you will render me an account of the state of the person you may see in the house you will be taken to." The physician obeyed without a remark, as at that time people began to obey Louis XIV., and left the room preceding Saint-Aignan.
"Do you, Saint-Aignan, send Manicamp to me, before the physician can possibly have spoken to him." And Saint-Aignan left in his turn.
CHAPTER XXIII.
SHOWING IN WHAT WAY D'ARTAGNAN DISCHARGED THE MISSION WITH WHICH THE KING HAD INTRUSTED HIM.
