The Three Musketeers | Page 4

add, and that is to propose an example to you-- not mine, for I
myself have never appeared at court, and have only taken part in religious wars as a
volunteer; I speak of Monsieur de Treville, who was formerly my neighbor, and who had
the honor to be, as a child, the play-fellow of our king, Louis XIII, whom God preserve!
Sometimes their play degenerated into battles, and in these battles the king was not
always the stronger. The blows which he received increased greatly his esteem and
friendship for Monsieur de Treville. Afterward, Monsieur de Treville fought with others:
in his first journey to Paris, five times; from the death of the late king till the young one
came of age, without reckoning wars and sieges, seven times; and from that date up to the
present day, a hundred times, perhaps! So that in spite of edicts, ordinances, and decrees,
there he is, captain of the Musketeers; that is to say, chief of a legion of Caesars, whom
the king holds in great esteem and whom the cardinal dreads--he who dreads nothing, as
it is said. Still further, Monsieur de Treville gains ten thousand crowns a year; he is
therefore a great noble. He began as you begin. Go to him with this letter, and make him
your model in order that you may do as he has done."
Upon which M. d'Artagnan the elder girded his own sword round his son, kissed him
tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his benediction.
On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who was waiting for
him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we have just repeated would
necessitate frequent employment. The adieux were on this side longer and more tender
than they had been on the other--not that M. d'Artagnan did not love his son, who was his
only offspring, but M. d'Artagnan was a man, and he would have considered it unworthy

of a man to give way to his feelings; whereas Mme. d'Artagnan was a woman, and still
more, a mother. She wept abundantly; and--let us speak it to the praise of M. d'Artagnan
the younger--notwithstanding the efforts he made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer
ought, nature prevailed, and he shed many tears, of which he succeeded with great
difficulty in concealing the half.
The same day the young man set forward on his journey, furnished with the three paternal
gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen crowns, the horse, and the letter for M.
de Treville-- the counsels being thrown into the bargain.
With such a VADE MECUM d'Artagnan was morally and physically an exact copy of
the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when our duty of an
historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his portrait. Don Quixote took
windmills for giants, and sheep for armies; d'Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and
every look as a provocation--whence it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was
constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the fist did not descend
upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its scabbard. It was not that the sight of the
wretched pony did not excite numerous smiles on the countenances of passers-by; but as
against the side of this pony rattled a sword of respectable length, and as over this sword
gleamed an eye rather ferocious than haughty, these passers-by repressed their hilarity, or
if hilarity prevailed over prudence, they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like the
masks of the ancients. D'Artagnan, then, remained majestic and intact in his susceptibility,
till he came to this unlucky city of Meung.
But there, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly Miller, without
anyone--host, waiter, or hostler--coming to hold his stirrup or take his horse, d'Artagnan
spied, though an open window on the ground floor, a gentleman, well-made and of good
carriage, although of rather a stern countenance, talking with two persons who appeared
to listen to him with respect. d'Artagnan fancied quite naturally, according to his custom,
that he must be the object of their conversation, and listened. This time d'Artagnan was
only in part mistaken; he himself was not in question, but his horse was. The gentleman
appeared to be enumerating all his qualities to his auditors; and, as I have said, the
auditors seeming to have great deference for the narrator, they every moment burst into
fits of laughter. Now, as a half-smile was sufficient to awaken the irascibility of the
young man, the effect produced upon him by this vociferous mirth may be easily
imagined.
Nevertheless, d'Artagnan was desirous of examining the appearance of this