Ten Years Later: Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas Chapter 64 Page 20

merit, the men already great for posterity.

Choose, sire! and that, too, without delay. Whatever relics remain to you of the great nobility, guard them with a jealous eye; you will never be deficient in courtiers. Delay not — and send me to the Bastile with my friend; for, if you did not know how to listen to the Comte de la Fere, whose voice is the sweetest and noblest in all the world when honor is the theme; if you do not know how to listen to D’Artagnan, the frankest and honestest voice of sincerity, you are a bad king, and to-morrow will be a poor king. And learn from me, sire, that bad kings are hated by their people, and poor kings are driven ignominiously away.’ That is what I had to say to you, sire; you were wrong to drive me to say it.”

The king threw