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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 24 at Prostate Health
strong wrist, but his agility
was superior to all force. The Swiss received two wounds and
was not aware of it, by reason of the cold; but suddenly
feebleness, occasioned by loss of blood, obliged him to sit
down.
"There!" said: DArtagnan, "what did I tell you?
Fortunately, you wont be laid up more than a fortnight.
Remain here and I will send you your clothes by the boy.
Good-by! Oh, by the way, youd better take lodging in the
Rue Montorgueil at the Chat Qui Pelote. You will be well fed
there, if the hostess remains the same. Adieu."
Thereupon he returned in a lively mood to his room and sent
to the Swiss the things that belonged to him. The boy found
him sitting where DArtagnan had left him, still overwhelmed
by the coolness of his adversary.
The boy, the hostess, and all the house had the same regard
for DArtagnan that one would have for Hercules should he
return to earth to repeat his twelve labors.
But when he was alone with the hostess he said: "Now, pretty
Madeleine, you know the difference between a Swiss and a
gentleman. As for you, you have acted like a barmaid. So
much the worse for you, for by such conduct you have lost my
esteem and my patronage. I have driven away the Swiss to
humiliate you, but I shall lodge here no longer. I will not
sleep where I must scorn. Ho, there, boy! Have my valise
carried to the Muid dAmour, Rue des Bourdonnais. Adieu,
madame."
In saying these words DArtagnan appeared at the same time
majestic and grieved. The hostess threw herself at his feet,
asked his pardon and held him back with a sweet violence.
What more need be said? The spit turned, the stove roared,
the pretty Madeleine wept; DArtagnan felt himself invaded
by hunger, cold and love. He pardoned, and having pardoned
he remained.
And this explains how DArtagnan had quarters in the Rue
Tiquetonne, at the Hotel de la Chevrette.
DArtagnan then returned home in thoughtful mood, finding a
somewhat lively pleasure in carrying Mazarins bag of money
and thinking of that fine diamond which he had once called
his own and which he had seen on the ministers finger that
night.
"Should that diamond ever fall into my hands again," he
reflected, "I would turn it at once into money; I would buy
with the proceeds certain lands around my fathers chateau,
which is a pretty place, well enough, but with no land to it
at all, except a garden about the size of the Cemetery des
Innocents; and I should wait in all my glory till some rich
heiress, attracted by my good looks, rode along to marry me.
Then I should like to have three sons; I should make the
first a nobleman, like Athos; the second a good soldier,
like Porthos; the third an excellent abbe, like Aramis.
Faith! that would be a far better life than I lead now; but
Monsieur Mazarin is a mean wretch, who wont dispossess
himself of his diamond in my favor."
On entering the Rue Tiquetonne he heard a tremendous noise
and found a dense crowd near the house.
"Oho!" said he, "is the hotel on fire?" On approaching the
hotel of the Roe he found, however, that it was in front of
the next house the mob was collected. The people were
shouting and running about with torches. By the light of one
of these torches DArtagnan perceived men in uniform.
He asked what was going on.
He was told that twenty citizens, headed by one man, had
attacked a carriage which was escorted by a troop of the
cardinals bodyguard; but a reinforcement having come up,
the assailants had been put to flight and the leader had
taken refuge in the hotel next to his lodgings; the house
was now being searched.
In his youth DArtagnan had often headed the bourgeoisie
against the military, but he was cured of all those
hot-headed propensities; besides, he had the cardinals
hundred pistoles in his pocket, so he went into the hotel
without a word. There he found Madeleine alarmed for his
safety and anxious to tell him all the events of the
evening, but he cut her short by ordering her to put his
supper in his room and give him with it a bottle of good
Burgundy.
He took his key and candle and went upstairs to his bedroom.
He had been contented, for the convenience of the house, to
lodge in the fourth story; and truth obliges us even to
confess that his chamber was just above the gutter and
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