o me, my prince. I do
not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read to the depths
of your own. I will not take you, incomplete for your task, in order to
cast you into the crucible of my own desires, or my caprice, or my
ambition. Everything or nothing. You are chilled and galled, sick at
heart, almost overcome by the excess of emotion, which but one hour's
liberty has produced in you. For me, that is a certain and unmistakable
sign that you do not wish to continue at liberty. Would you prefer a
more humble life, a life more suited to your strength? Heaven is my
witness, that I wish your happiness to be the result of the trial to
which I have exposed you."

"Speak, speak," said the prince, with a vivacity which did not escape
Aramis.

"I know," resumed the prelate, "in the Bas-Poiton, a canton, of which no
one in France suspects the existence. Twenty leagues of country is
immense, is it not? Twenty leagues, monseigneur, all covered with water
and herbage, and reeds of the most luxuriant nature; the whole studded
with islands covered with woods of the densest foliage. These large
marshes, covered with reeds as with a thick mantle, sleep silently and
calmly beneath the sun's soft and genial rays. A few fishermen with
their families indolently pass their lives away there, with their large
rafts of poplars and alders, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof
woven out of thick rushes. These barks, these floating-houses, are
wafted to and fro by the changing winds. Whenever they touch a bank, it
is but by chance; and so gently, too, that the sleeping fisherman is not
awakened by the shock. Should he wish to land, it is merely because he
has seen a large flight of land-rails or plovers, of wild ducks, teal,
widgeon, or woodcocks, which fall an easy prey to his nets or his gun.
Silver shad, eels, greedy pike, red and gray mullet, fall in masses into
his nets; he has but to choose the finest and largest, and return the
others to the waters. Never yet has the foot of man, be he soldier or
simple citizen, never has any one, indeed, penetrated into that
district. The sun's rays there are soft and tempered; in plots of solid
earth, whose soil is rich and fertile, grows the vine, which nourishes
with its generous juice its black and white grapes. Once a week, a boat
is sent to fetch the bread which has been baked at an oven--the common
property of all. There, like the seigneurs of early days--powerful
because of you