agnan
left Pierrefonds as he had left Melun, as he had left the chateau of the
Comte de la Fere. It was not, however, without a melancholy, which might
in good sooth pass for one of the most dismal of D'Artagnan's moods.
His head cast down, his eyes fixed, he suffered his legs to hang on each
side of his horse, and said to himself, in that vague sort of reverie
which ascends sometimes to the sublimest eloquence:

"No more friends! no more future! no more anything! My energies are
broken like the bonds of our ancient friendship. Oh, old age is coming,
cold and inexorable; it envelopes in its funeral crepe all that was
brilliant, all that was embalming in my youth; then it throws that sweet
burthen on its shoulders and carries it away with the rest into the
fathomless gulf of death."

A shudder crept through the heart of the Gascon, so brave and so strong
against all the misfortunes of life; and during some moments the clouds
appeared black to him, the earth slippery and full of pits as that of
cemeteries.

"Whither am I going?" said he to himself. "What am I going to do! Alone,
quite alone--without family, without friends! Bah!" cried he all at
once. And he clapped spurs to his horse, who, having found nothing
melancholy in the heavy oats of Pierrefonds, profited by this permission
to show his gayety in a gallop which absorbed two leagues. "To Paris!"
said D'Artagnan to himself. And on the morrow he alighted in Paris. He
had devoted ten days to this journey.

Chapter XIX. What D'Artagnan went to Paris for.

The lieutenant dismounted before a shop in the Rue des Lombards, at the
sign of the Pilon d'Or. A man of good appearance, wearing a white apron,
and stroking his gray mustache with a large hand, uttered a cry of joy
on perceiving the pied horse. "Monsieur le chevalier," said he, "ah, is
that you?"

"_Bon jour_, Planchet," replied D'Artagnan, stooping to enter the shop.

"Quick, somebody," cried Planchet, "to look after Monsieur d'Artagnan's
horse,--somebody to get ready his room,--somebody to prepare his
supper."

"Thanks, Planchet. Good-day, my children!" said D'Artagnan to the eager
boys.

"Allow me to send off this coffee, this treacle, and these
raisins," said Planchet; "they are for the store-room of monsieur le
surintendant."

"Send them off, send them off!"

"That is only the affair of a moment, then we shall sup."

"Arrange it that we may sup alone; I want to speak to you."

Planchet look