observations.
D'Artagnan put Furet into a stable; supped, went to bed, and on the
morrow took a walk upon the port or rather upon the shingle. Le Croisic
has a port of fifty feet; it has a look-out which resembles an enormous
_brioche_ (a kind of cake) elevated on a dish. The flat strand is the
dish. Hundreds of barrowsful of earth amalgamated with pebbles, and
rounded into cones, with sinuous passages between, are look-outs and
_brioches_ at the same time. It is so now, and it was so two hundred
years ago, only the _brioche_ was not so large, and probably there were
to be seen to trellises of lath around the _brioche_, which constitute
an ornament, planted like _gardes-fous_ along the passages that wind
towards the little terrace. Upon the shingle lounged three or four
fishermen talking about sardines and shrimps. D'Artagnan, with his eyes
animated by a rough gayety, and a smile upon his lips, approached these
fishermen.

"Any fishing going on to-day?" said he.

"Yes, monsieur," replied one of them, "we are only waiting for the
tide."

"Where do you fish, my friends?"

"Upon the coasts, monsieur."

"Which are the best coasts?"

"Ah, that is all according. The tour of the isles, for example?"

"Yes, but they are a long way off, those isles, are they not?"

"Not very; four leagues."

"Four leagues! That is a voyage."

The fishermen laughed in M. Agnan's face.

"Hear me, then," said the latter with an air of simple stupidity; "four
leagues off you lose sight of land, do you not?"

"Why, not always."

"Ah, it is a long way--too long, or else I would have asked you to take
me aboard, and to show me what I have never seen."

"What is that?"

"A live sea-fish."

"Monsieur comes from the province?" said a fisherman.

"Yes, I come from Paris."

The Breton shrugged his shoulders; then:

"Have you ever seen M. Fouquet in Paris?" asked he.

"Often," replied D'Artagnan.

"Often!" repeated the fishermen, closing their circle round the
Parisian. "Do you know him?"

"A little; he is the intimate friend of my master."

"Ah!" said the fishermen, in astonishment.

"And," said D'Artagnan, "I have seen all his chateaux of Saint Mande, of
Vaux, and his hotel in Paris."

"Is that a fine place?"

"Superb."

"It is not so fine a place as Belle-Isle," said the fisherman.

"Bah!" cried M. d'Artagnan, breaking into a laugh so loud that he
angered all his auditors.

"It is very plain that you have never see