my sword or wet the priming of my pistols'; for Monsieur
le Marechal thought of everything, and never interfered in what did not
concern him. That was his great principle; and as he was, thank Heaven,
alike good soldier and good general, he was always as careful of his
arms as a recruit, and would not have stood up against thirty young
gallants with a dress rapier."

Cinq-Mars felt the force of the worthy servitor's epigrammatic scolding,
and feared that he had followed him beyond the wood of Chaumont; but
he would not ask, lest he should have to give explanations or to tell
a falsehood or to command silence, which would at once have been taking
him into confidence on the subject. As the only alternative, he spurred
his horse and rode ahead of his old domestic; but the latter had not yet
had his say, and instead of keeping behind his master, he rode up to his
left and continued the conversation.

"Do you suppose, Monsieur, that I should allow you to go where you
please? No, Monsieur, I am too deeply impressed with the respect I
owe to Madame la Marquise, to give her an opportunity of saying to me:
'Grandchamp, my son has been killed with a shot or with a sword; why
were you not before him?' Or, 'He has received a stab from the stiletto
of an Italian, because he went at night beneath the window of a great
princess; why did you not seize the assassin?' This would be very
disagreeable to me, Monsieur, for I never have been reproached with
anything of the kind. Once Monsieur le Marechal lent me to his nephew,
Monsieur le Comte, to make a campaign in the Netherlands, because I know
Spanish. I fulfilled the duty with honor, as I always do. When Monsieur
le Comte received a bullet in his heart, I myself brought back his
horses, his mules, his tent, and all his equipment, without so much as
a pocket-handkerchief being missed; and I can assure you that the horses
were as well dressed and harnessed when we reentered Chaumont as if
Monsieur le Comte had been about to go a-hunting. And, accordingly, I
received nothing but compliments and agreeable things from the whole
family, just in the way I like."

"Well, well, my friend," said Henri d'Effiat, "I may some day, perhaps,
have these horses to take back; but in the mean time take this great
purse of gold, which I have well-nigh lost two or three times, and thou
shalt pay for me everywhere. The money wearies me."

"Monsieur le Marechal did not so, Monsieur. He had been superinten