Your friends are now destroyed or ruined by me. These supports on which your capricious mind instinctively relied I have caused to disappear. At this moment, my soldiers have taken or killed the rebels of Belle-Isle.”

D’Artagnan became pale. “Taken or killed!” cried he. “Oh! sire, if you thought what you tell, if you were sure you were telling me the truth, I should forget all that is just, all that is magnanimous in your words, to call you a barbarous king, and an unnatural man.

But I pardon you these words,” said he, smiling with pride; “I pardon them to a young prince who does not know, who cannot comprehend what such men as M. d’Herblay, M. du Vallon, and myself are. Taken or killed! Ah! Ah! sire! tell me, if the news is true, how much