“See how unfortunate I am, my lord count; it is only due to chance that I have met with you. Alas! I ought to have people around me whom I love and honor, whereas I am reduced to preserve their services in my heart, and their names in my memory: so that if your servant had not recognized mine, I should have passed by your door as by that of a stranger.” “It is but too true,” said Athos, replying with his voice to the first part of the king’s speech, and with a bow to the second; “it is but too true, indeed, that your majesty has seen many evil days.” “And the worst, alas!” replied Charles, “are perhaps still to come.” “Sire, let us hope.” “Count, count,” continued Charles, shaking his head, “I entertained hope till last night, and that of a good Christian, I swear.” Athos looked at the king as if to interrogate him. “Oh, the history is soon related,” said Charles. “Proscribed, despoiled, disdained, I resolved, in spite of all my repugnance, to tempt fortune one last time. Is it not written above, that, for our family, all good fortune and all bad fortune shall eternally come from France? You know something of that, monsieur,—you, who are one of the Frenchmen whom my unfortunate father found at the foot of his scaffold, on the day of his death, after having found them at his right hand on the day of battle.” “Sire,” said Athos modestly, “I was not alone. My companions and I did, under the circumstances, our duty as gentlemen, and that was all. Your majesty was about to do me the honor to relate—” “That is true, I had the protection,—pardon my hesitation, count, but, for a Stuart, you, who understand everything, you will comprehend that the word is hard to pronounce;—I had, I say, the protection of my cousin the stadtholder of Holland; but without the intervention, or at least without the authorization of France, the stadtholder would not take the initiative. I came, then, to ask this authorization of the king of France, who has refused me.” “The king has refused you, sire!” “Oh, not he; all justice must be rendered to my younger brother Louis; but Monsieur de Mazarin—” Athos bit his lips. “You perhaps think I should have expected this refusal?” said the king, who had noticed the movement. “That was, in truth, my thought, sire,” replied Athos, respectfully; “I know that Italian of old.” “Then I determined to come to the test, and know at once the last word of my destiny. I told my brother Louis, that, not to compromise either France or Holland, I would tempt fortune myself in person, as I had already done, with two hundred gentlemen, if he would give them to me; and a million, if he would lend it me.” “Well, sire?” “Well, monsieur, I am suffering at this moment something strange, and that is, the satisfaction of despair. There is in certain souls,—and I have just discovered that mine is of the number,—a real satisfaction in the assurance that all is lost, and the time is come to yield.”