in French — whatever I may order you to do, will you not perform it?”

“Certainly. I have already answered that question in the affirmative; but that command must come from the queen herself.”

“Yes! ah yes!” Mazarin bit his lips as he spoke; “I know your devotion to her majesty.”

“I have been a captain in the queen’s guards for twenty years,” was the reply.

“En route, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the cardinal; “all goes well in this direction.”

D’Artagnan, in the meantime, had taken the head of his detachment without a word and with that ready and profound obedience which marks the character of an old soldier.