ducted me to the Chatelet, where I slept soundly,
being very sure that on the next day I should go forth free. The
next day came and passed, the day after, a week; I then wrote to the
cardinal. The same day they came for me and took me to the Bastile.
That was five years ago. Do you believe it was because I committed the
sacrilege of mounting en croupe behind Henry IV.?"

"No; you are right, my dear Rochefort, it couldn't be for that; but you
will probably learn the reason soon."

"Ah, indeed! I forgot to ask you--where are you taking me?"

"To the cardinal."

"What does he want with me?"

"I do not know. I did not even know that you were the person I was sent
to fetch."

"Impossible--you--a favorite of the minister!"

"A favorite! no, indeed!" cried D'Artagnan. "Ah, my poor friend! I am
just as poor a Gascon as when I saw you at Meung, twenty-two years ago,
you know; alas!" and he concluded his speech with a deep sigh.

"Nevertheless, you come as one in authority."

"Because I happened to be in the ante-chamber when the cardinal called
me, by the merest chance. I am still a lieutenant in the musketeers and
have been so these twenty years."

"Then no misfortune has happened to you?"

"And what misfortune could happen to me? To quote some Latin verses I
have forgotten, or rather, never knew well, 'the thunderbolt never falls
on the valleys,' and I am a valley, dear Rochefort,--one of the lowliest
of the low."

"Then Mazarin is still Mazarin?"

"The same as ever, my friend; it is said that he is married to the
queen."

"Married?"

"If not her husband, he is unquestionably her lover."

"You surprise me. Rebuff Buckingham and consent to Mazarin!"

"Just like the women," replied D'Artagnan, coolly.

"Like women, not like queens."

"Egad! queens are the weakest of their sex, when it comes to such things
as these."

"And M. de Beaufort--is he still in prison?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, but that he might get me out of this, if he were favorably
inclined to me."

"You are probably nearer freedom than he is, so it will be your business
to get him out."

"And," said the prisoner, "what talk is there of war with Spain?"

"With Spain, no," answered D'Artagnan; "but Paris."

"What do you mean?" cried Rochefort.

"Do you hear the guns, pray? The citizens are amusing themselves in the
meantime."

"And you--do you really think that anything could be done with these
bourgeois?"

"Yes, they might