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By Root 1226 0

de Tréville. He was formerly my neighbor; as a child, he had the honor of being a playmate of our King, Louis XIII, whom God preserve! Their games sometimes degenerated into battles in which the King did not always have the upper hand. The thumps and thwacks he received from Monsieur de Tréville inspired His Majesty with much esteem and friendship for his former playmate. Later, Monsieur de Tréville fought against others: on his first journey to Paris, five times . . . from the death of the late King to the majority of the young King, seven times, excluding all the wars and the sieges he has been through . . . from that date until now, I do not know how many times, possibly one hundred . . . thus despite all edicts, ordinances Musketeers—in other words, leader of a legion of Caesars highly esteemed by His Majesty and dreaded by the Cardinal, who is known to dread nothing! Better still, Monsieur de Tréville earns ten thousand crowns per annum, which makes him a very great noble indeed. And he started from scratch, just like you!

“Go to him with this letter. And model your behavior upon his, in order to accomplish what he has accomplished.”

Whereupon the old man buckled his own sword to his son’s belt, kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his blessing.

Leaving his father, the young man went to his mother’s apartment where she awaited him with that sovereign remedy which, thanks to the advice we have reported, was subsequently to be employed so often. In this interview, the adieux were longer and more tender than in the other. It was not because Monsieur d’Artagnan failed to cherish his only son, but he was a man and he would have deemed it unworthy for a man to give way to his feelings; whereas Madame d’Artagnan was a woman, and more, a mother. So she wept copiously and, to the honor of Monsieur d’Artagnan the younger, notwithstanding the efforts he made to remain as firm as a future musketeer should be, nature prevailed, and he too shed many tears, half of which he managed at great pains to conceal.

That same day the youth set out on his journey equipped with his father’s three gifts, namely, the fifteen crowns, the horse and the letter to Monsieur de Tréville. As may well be imagined, the advice had been thrown into the bargain.

With such a vade mecum, D’Artagnan was, morally and physically, an exact replica of Cervantes’ hero, to whom we so aptly compared him when our duties as historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his portrait. The Spanish don took windmills for giants and sheep for armies; his Gascon counterpart took every smile for an insult and every glance for a challenge. Accordingly from Tardes in the Pyrénées all the way to Meung on the Loire, he kept his fist clenched or pressed his hand against the hilt of his sword ten times a day. Yet his fist did not crash down on any jaw nor did his sword issue from its scabbard. To be sure, the sight of the wretched nag excited many a smile as D’Artagnan rode by, but against the nag’s flank rattled a sword of respectable length and over the sword gleamed an eye more ferocious than proud. Passersby therefore repressed their hilarity or, if hilarity prevailed over prudence, they attempted to laugh on one side of their faces only, as do the masks of the ancients. Thus D’Artagnan remained majestic and virgin in his susceptibility until he reached the inauspicious town of Meung.

There, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of The Jolly Miller, without anyone—host, waiter or ostler—coming to hold his stirrup, D’Artagnan spied, through an open window on the ground floor, a gentleman of fine figure and proud, though somewhat sullen mien. This person was talking to two others who appeared to be listening to him with great deference. D’Artagnan, fancying quite naturally, according to habit, that he was the object of their conversation, listened attentively. This time D’Artagnan was only in part mistaken; he himself was not being discussed, his nag was. Apparently the gentleman was treating his audience to an enumeration of all the nag’s qualities;