"
"Weigh your words, Monsieur le Chevalier," warned the cardinal. The
Chevalier's tone was not pleasing to his cardinal's ear.
"You ask me to weigh my words, Monseigneur?--to weigh my words?" with a
gesture which caused the musketeers to draw closer to Mazarin, "Oh, I
am calm, gentlemen; I am calm!" He threw his hat to the floor, drew
his sword and tossed it beside the hat, and folding his arms he said,
his voice full of sudden wrath--wrath, against the ironical turn of
fortune which had changed his cup of wine into salt:--"Now,
Monseigneur, I demand of you that privilege which belongs to and is
inseparable from my house: the right to face my accusers."
"I warn you, Monsieur," said Mazarin, "I like not this manner you
assume. There were witnesses, and trustworthy ones. Yon may rely upon
that."
"Trustworthy? That is not possible. I did not know De Brissac. I
have never exchanged a word with him."
"It is not advanced that you knew Monsieur le Comte. But there was
madame, who, it is said, was at one time affianced to you." Mazarin
was a keen physiognomist; and as he read the utter bewilderment written
on the Chevalier's face, his own grew somewhat puzzled.
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