t to its height, if Planchet had known the
details.

Nothing was now left but arranging the general orders, and D'Artagnan
gave them with precision. He enjoined his men to be ready to set out for
the Hague, some following the coast which leads to Breskens, others the
road to Antwerp. The rendezvous was given, by calculating each day's
march, a fortnight from that time, upon the chief place at the Hague.
D'Artagnan recommended his men to go in couples, as they liked best,
from sympathy. He himself selected from among those with the least
disreputable look, two guards whom he had formerly known, and whose only
faults were being drunkards and gamblers. These men had not entirely
lost all ideas of civilization, and under proper garments their hearts
would beat again. D'Artagnan, not to create any jealousy with the
others, made the rest go forward. He kept his two selected ones, clothed
them from his own wardrobe, and set out with them.

It was to these two, whom he seemed to honor with an absolute
confidence, that D'Artagnan imparted a false secret, destined to secure
the success of the expedition. He confessed to them that the object was
not to learn to what extent French merchants were injured by English
smuggling, but to learn how far French smuggling could annoy English
trade. These men appeared convinced; they were effectively so.
D'Artagnan was quite sure that at the first debauch, when thoroughly
drunk, one of the two would divulge the secret to the whole band. His
game appeared infallible.

A fortnight after all we have said had taken place at Calais, the whole
troop assembled at the Hague.

Then D'Artagnan perceived that all his men, with remarkable
intelligence, had already travestied themselves into sailors, more or
less ill-treated by the sea. D'Artagnan left them to sleep in a den in
Newkerke street, whilst he lodged comfortably upon the Grand Canal. He
learned that the king of England had come back to his old ally, William
II. of Nassau, stadtholder of Holland. He learned also that the refusal
of Louis XIV. had a little cooled the protection afforded him up to that
time, and in consequence he had gone to reside in a little village house
at Scheveningen, situated in the downs, on the sea-shore, about a league
from the Hague.

There, it was said, the unfortunate banished king consoled himself in
his exile, by looking, with the melancholy peculiar to the princes
of his race, at that immense North Sea, which