I was only saying, this very morning, to D'Artagnan, how much
I regretted him. But tell me, Planchet?"

"Thank you, Monsieur le Baron, thank you."

"Good lad, good lad! How many acres of park have you got?"

"Of park?"

"Yes; we will reckon up the meadows presently, and the woods afterward."

"Whereabouts, monsieur?"

"At your chateau."

"Oh, Monsieur le Baron; I have neither chateau, nor park, nor meadows,
nor woods."

"What have you got, then?" inquired Porthos, "and why do you call it a
country-seat?"

"I did not call it a country-seat, Monsieur le Baron," replied Planchet,
somewhat humiliated, "but a country-box."

"Ah, ah! I understand. You are modest."

"No, Monsieur le Baron; I speak the plain truth. I have rooms for a
couple of friends, that is all."

"But, in that case, whereabouts do your friends walk?"

"In the first place, they can walk about the king's forest, which is
very beautiful."

"Yes, I know the forest is very fine," said Porthos; "nearly as
beautiful as my forest at Berry."

Planchet opened his eyes very wide. "Have you a forest of the same kind
as the forest at Fontainebleau, Monsieur le Baron?" he stammered out.

"Yes; I have two, indeed, but the one at Berry is my favorite."

"Why so?" asked Planchet.

"Because I don't know where it ends; and, also, because it is full of
poachers."

"How can the poachers make the forest so agreeable to you?"

"Because they hunt my game, and I hunt them--which in these peaceful
times is for me a picture of war on a small scale."

They had reached this turn of the conversation, when Planchet, looking
up, perceived the houses at the commencement of Fontainebleau, the
outline of which stood out strongly upon the dark face of the heavens;
while, rising above the compact and irregularly formed mass of
buildings, the pointed roofs of the chateau were clearly visible, the
slates of which glistened beneath the light of the moon, like the scales
of an immense fish. "Gentlemen," said Planchet, "I have the honor to
inform you that we have arrived at Fontainebleau."

CHAPTER XII.

PLANCHET'S COUNTRY-HOUSE.

The cavaliers looked up, and saw that what Planchet had announced to
them was true. Ten minutes afterward they were in the street called the
Rue de Lyon, on the opposite side of the inn of the sign of the "Beau
Paon." A high hedge of bushy alders, hawthorn, and wild hops, formed an
impenetrable fence, behind which rose a white hous