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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 15 at Prostate Health
doubtless furnished fresh
food, had recommenced; when M. de Treville had three or four
times paced in silence, and with a frowning brow, the whole
length of his cabinet, passing each time before Porthos and
Aramis, who were as upright and silent as if on parade--he
stopped all at once full in front of them, and covering them from
head to foot with an angry look, "Do you know what the king said
to me," cried he, "and that no longer ago than yesterday
evening--do you know, gentlemen?"
"No," replied the two Musketeers, after a moments silence, "no,
sir, we do not."
"But I hope that you will do us the honor to tell us," added
Aramis, in his politest tone and with his most graceful bow.
"He told me that he should henceforth recruit his Musketeers from
among the Guards of Monsieur the Cardinal."
"The Guards of the cardinal! And why so?" asked Porthos, warmly.
"Because he plainly perceives that his piquette* stands in need
of being enlivened by a mixture of good wine."
*A watered liquor, made from the second pressing of the grape.
The two Musketeers reddened to the whites of their eyes.
dArtagnan did not know where he was, and wished himself a
hundred feet underground.
"Yes, yes," continued M. de Treville, growing warmer as he spoke,
"and his majesty was right; for, upon my honor, it is true that
the Musketeers make but a miserable figure at court. The
cardinal related yesterday while playing with the king, with an
air of condolence very displeasing to me, that the day before
yesterday those DAMNED MUSKETEERS, those DAREDEVILS--he dwelt
upon those words with an ironical tone still more displeasing to
me--those BRAGGARTS, added he, glancing at me with his tiger-
cats eye, had made a riot in the Rue Ferou in a cabaret, and
that a party of his Guards (I thought he was going to laugh in my
face) had been forced to arrest the rioters! MORBLEU! You must
know something about it. Arrest Musketeers! You were among
them--you were! Dont deny it; you were recognized, and the
cardinal named you. But its all my fault; yes, its all my
fault, because it is myself who selects my men. You, Aramis, why
the devil did you ask me for a uniform when you would have been
so much better in a cassock? And you, Porthos, do you only wear
such a fine golden baldric to suspend a sword of straw from it?
And Athos--I dont see Athos. Where is he?"
"Ill--"
"Very ill, say you? And of what malady?"
"It is feared that it may be the smallpox, sir," replied Porthos,
desirous of taking his turn in the conversation; "and what is
serious is that it will certainly spoil his face."
"The smallpox! Thats a great story to tell me, Porthos! Sick
of the smallpox at his age! No, no; but wounded without doubt,
killed, perhaps. Ah, if I knew! Sblood! Messieurs Musketeers,
I will not have this haunting of bad places, this quarreling in
the streets, this swordplay at the crossways; and above all, I
will not have occasion given for the cardinals Guards, who are
brave, quiet, skillful men who never put themselves in a
position to be arrested, and who, besides, never allow themselves
to be arrested, to laugh at you! I am sure of it--they would
prefer dying on the spot to being arrested or taking back a step.
To save yourselves, to scamper away, to flee--that is good for
the kings Musketeers!"
Porthos and Aramis trembled with rage. They could willingly have
strangled M. de Treville, if, at the bottom of all this, they had
not felt it was the great love he bore them which made him speak
thus. They stamped upon the carpet with their feet; they bit
their lips till the blood came, and grasped the hilts of their
swords with all their might. All without had heard, as we have
said, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis called, and had guessed, from M.
de Trevilles tone of voice, that he was very angry about
something. Ten curious heads were glued to the tapestry and
became pale with fury; for their ears, closely applied to the
door, did not lose a syllable of what he said, while their mouths
repeated as he went on, the insulting expressions of the captain
to all the people in the antechamber. In an instant, from the
door of the cabinet to the street
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