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By Root 1280 0

one another in relays so as always to present an imposing number; they paraded ceaselessly, armed to the teeth and prepared for any eventuality. In quest of favors, the office-seekers of Paris sped up and down one of those colossal staircases within whose space our modern civilisation could build an entire house. There were gentlemen from the provinces eager to enroll in the Musketeers and flunkeys in brilliant, multicolored liveries bringing and bearing back messages between their masters and Monsieur de Tréville. In the antechamber on long circular benches sat the elect, that is to say those fortunate enough to have been summoned. A perpetual buzzing reigned in this room from morning till night while Monsieur de Tréville, in an adjoining office, received visits, listened to complaints and gave his orders. To review both his men and his arms, he had but to step to his window, much as at the Louvre the King had but to step out on his balcony.

The day D’Artagnan appeared at the Hôtel de Tréville the assemblage was most imposing, particularly for a provincial newly arrived from his distant province. True, this provincial was a Gascon and at that period Gascons were reputed to be difficult to impress. Entering through the massive door with its long, square studs, he walked into the midst of a troop of swordsmen crossing one another as they passed, calling out, quarreling and playing tricks on one another. Only an officer, a great lord or a pretty woman could have moved through these turbulent, clashing waves of humanity.

Young D’Artagnan advanced with beating heart through this tumult and confusion, holding his long rapier tight against his lanky leg and keeping one hand on the brim of his felt hat with the half-smile of your provincial who wishes to cut a figure. Having got past one group, he breathed more easily but he realized that people were turning round to stare at him, and, for the first time in his life, D’Artagnan, who had hitherto entertained a very good opinion of himself, felt ridiculous.

Things were still worse when he reached the staircase to be confronted with the following scene. Four musketeers were amusing themselves fencing. Three were on the bottom steps, a fourth some steps above them; he, naked sword in hand, prevented or attempted to prevent the three from ascending, as they plied their agile swords against him. Ten or twelve comrades waited on the landing to take their turn at this sport. At first D’Artagnan mistook these weapons for foils and believed them to be buttoned, but he soon recognized by the scratches inflicted that every weapon was pointed as a needle and razor-sharp. Incidentally, at each scratch one of the fencers dealt an adversary, both spectators and the actors themselves roared with laughter.

The soldier temporarily defending the upper step kept his adversaries marvelously in check. The circle about the fencers grew denser as fresh candidates swelled the audience. The rules of the game were that when a man was hit, he must yield his turn to another candidate, and the man who hit him received an extra turn. In five minutes, the defender of the stairway pinked three men very slightly, one on the wrist, another on the chin, and the third on the ear, while he himself remained intact. This feat, according to the rules, won him three extra turns.

However difficult it might be—or rather, however difficult D’Artagnan pretended it might be—for them to impress him, this pastime left him gaping. In his home province, a land where every man is a hothead, he had seen somewhat more elaborate preliminaries before dueling; the gasconnade—that is, the impetuosity, courage, calm and swagger of these four fencers—eclipsed anything he had ever witnessed even in Gascony. It was as though he had been transported into that famous realm of giants which Gulliver was later to visit and where he was to be so frightened. But D’Artagnan had not yet reached his goal; he had still to cross the landing and the antechamber.

At the head of the stairs, the musketeers were not fighting, they were exchanging stories