y dear Monsieur de Rochefort, how much you
must have learned during your intimacy with the late cardinal! Ah! he
was a great man."

"Will your eminence be angry if I read you a lesson?"

"I! never! you know you may say anything to me. I try to be beloved, not
feared."

"Well, there is on the wall of my cell, scratched with a nail, a
proverb, which says, 'Like master, like servant.'"

"Pray, what does that mean?"

"It means that Monsieur de Richelieu was able to find trusty servants,
dozens and dozens of them."

"He! the point aimed at by every poniard! Richelieu, who passed his life
in warding off blows which were forever aimed at him!"

"But he did ward them off," said De Rochefort, "and the reason was,
that though he had bitter enemies he possessed also true friends. I have
known persons," he continued--for he thought he might avail himself of
the opportunity of speaking of D'Artagnan--"who by their sagacity and
address have deceived the penetration of Cardinal Richelieu; who by
their valor have got the better of his guards and spies; persons without
money, without support, without credit, yet who have preserved to the
crowned head its crown and made the cardinal crave pardon."

"But those men you speak of," said Mazarin, smiling inwardly on seeing
Rochefort approach the point to which he was leading him, "those men
were not devoted to the cardinal, for they contended against him."

"No; in that case they would have met with more fitting reward. They had
the misfortune to be devoted to that very queen for whom just now you
were seeking servants."

"But how is it that you know so much of these matters?"

"I know them because the men of whom I speak were at that time my
enemies; because they fought against me; because I did them all the harm
I could and they returned it to the best of their ability; because one
of them, with whom I had most to do, gave me a pretty sword-thrust, now
about seven years ago, the third that I received from the same hand; it
closed an old account."

"Ah!" said Mazarin, with admirable suavity, "could I but find such men!"

"My lord, there has stood for six years at your very door a man such
as I describe, and during those six years he has been unappreciated and
unemployed by you."

"Who is it?"

"It is Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"That Gascon!" cried Mazarin, with well acted surprise.

"'That Gascon' has saved a queen and made Monsieur de Richelieu confess
that in point of tal