his Fortieth Year.

Years have elapsed, many events have happened, alas! since, in our
romance of "The Three Musketeers," we took leave of D'Artagnan at No.
12 Rue des Fossoyeurs. D'Artagnan had not failed in his career, but
circumstances had been adverse to him. So long as he was surrounded by
his friends he retained his youth and the poetry of his character. He
was one of those fine, ingenuous natures which assimilate themselves
easily to the dispositions of others. Athos imparted to him his
greatness of soul, Porthos his enthusiasm, Aramis his elegance. Had
D'Artagnan continued his intimacy with these three men he would have
become a superior character. Athos was the first to leave him, in order
that he might retire to a little property he had inherited near Blois;
Porthos, the second, to marry an attorney's wife; and lastly, Aramis,
the third, to take orders and become an abbe. From that day D'Artagnan
felt lonely and powerless, without courage to pursue a career in which
he could only distinguish himself on condition that each of his three
companions should endow him with one of the gifts each had received from
Heaven.

Notwithstanding his commission in the musketeers, D'Artagnan felt
completely solitary. For a time the delightful remembrance of Madame
Bonancieux left on his character a certain poetic tinge, perishable
indeed; for like all other recollections in this world, these
impressions were, by degrees, effaced. A garrison life is fatal even
to the most aristocratic organization; and imperceptibly, D'Artagnan,
always in the camp, always on horseback, always in garrison, became (I
know not how in the present age one would express it) a typical trooper.
His early refinement of character was not only not lost, it grew even
greater than ever; but it was now applied to the little, instead of
to the great things of life--to the martial condition of the
soldier--comprised under the head of a good lodging, a rich table, a
congenial hostess. These important advantages D'Artagnan found to his
own taste in the Rue Tiquetonne at the sign of the Roe.

From the time D'Artagnan took quarters in that hotel, the mistress of
the house, a pretty and fresh looking Flemish woman, twenty-five or
twenty-six years old, had been singularly interested in him; and after
certain love passages, much obstructed by an inconvenient husband to
whom a dozen times D'Artagnan had made a pretence of passing a sword
through his body, that