'I shall be the last to resist it--if you have it,' he said languidly.
'You may read it for yourself,' the Provost-Marshal answered, his patience exhausted.
M.de Rambouillet took the parchment with the ends of his fingers, glanced at it, and gave it back.

'As I thought,' he said, 'a manifest forgery.' 'A forgery!' cried the other, crimson with indignation.

'And I had it from the hands of the king's own secretary!' At this those behind murmured, some 'shame,' and some one thing and some another--all with an air so threatening that the Marquis's gentlemen closed up behind him, and M.d'Agen laughed rudely.
But M.de Rambouillet remained unmoved.

'You may have had it from whom you please, sir,' he said.

'It is a forgery, and I shall resist its execution.