e night, Henrietta overhears, at the same oak, De
Guiche confessing his love for her to Raoul. The two embark on their
own affair. A few days later, during a rainstorm, Louis and Louise
are trapped alone together, and the whole court begins to talk of the
scandal while their love affair blossoms. Aware of Louise's attachment,
the king arranges for Raoul to be sent to England for an indefinite
period.

Meanwhile, the struggle for power continues between Fouquet and Colbert.
Although the Belle-Isle plot backfired, Colbert prompts the king to ask
Fouquet for more and more money, and without his two friends to raise it
for him, Fouquet is sorely pressed. The situation gets so bad that his
new mistress, Madame de Belliere, must resort to selling all her jewels
and her gold and silver plate. Aramis, while this is going on, has grown
friendly with the governor of the Bastile, M. de Baisemeaux, a fact that
Baisemeaux unwittingly reveals to D'Artagnan while inquiring of him
as to Aramis's whereabouts. This further arouses the suspicions of the
musketeer, who was made to look ridiculous by Aramis. He had ridden
overnight at an insane pace, but arrived a few minutes after Fouquet
had already presented Belle-Isle to the king. Aramis learns from the
governor the location of a mysterious prisoner, who bears a remarkable
resemblance to Louis XIV--in fact, the two are identical. He uses
the existence of this secret to persuade a dying Franciscan monk, the
general of the society of the Jesuits, to name him, Aramis, the new
general of the order. On Aramis's advice, hoping to use Louise's
influence with the king to counteract Colbert's influence, Fouquet also
writes a love letter to La Valliere, unfortunately undated. It never
reaches its destination, however, as the servant ordered to deliver it
turns out to be an agent of Colbert's.

Porthos, in the meantime, has been recovering from his midnight ride
from Belle-Isle at Fouquet's residence at Saint-Mande. Athos has
retired, once again to La Fere. D'Artagnan, little amused by the court's
activities at Fontainebleau, and finding himself with nothing to do, has
returned to Paris, and we find him again in Planchet's grocery shop.

And so, the story continues in this, the third etext of The Vicomte de
Bragelonne. Enjoy!

John Bursey

Chapter I. Malaga.

During all these long and noisy debates between the opposite ambitions
of politics and love, one of our characters, perhaps the