“Nonsense! you are a musketeer.”
“You are wrong, my friend; I have given in my resignation.”
“Bah!”
“Oh, mon Dieu! yes.”
“And you have abandoned the service?”
“I have quitted it.”
“You have abandoned the king?”
“Quite.”
Porthos raised his arms towards heaven, like a man who has heard extraordinary news. “Well, that does confound me,” said he.
“It is nevertheless true.”
“And what led you to form such a resolution.”
“The king displeased me. Mazarin had disgusted me for a long time, as you know; so I threw my cassock to the nettles.”
“But Mazarin is dead.”
“I know that well enough, parbleu! Only, at the period of his death, my resignation had been given in and accepted two months. Then, feeling myself free, I set off for Pierrefonds, to see my friend Porthos. I had heard talk of the happy division you had made of your time, and I wished, for a fortnight, to divide mine after your fashion.”
“My friend, you know that it is not for a fortnight my house is open to you; it is for a year—for ten years—for life.”
“Thank you, Porthos.”
“Ah! but perhaps you want money—do you?” said Porthos, making something like fifty louis chink in his pocket. “In that case, you know—”
“No, thank you; I am not in want of anything. I placed my savings with Planchet, who pays me the interest of them.”
“Your savings?”
“Yes, to be sure,” said d’Artagnan: “why should I not put by my savings, as well as another, Porthos?”
“Oh, there is no reason why; on the contrary, I always suspected you—that is to say, Aramis always suspected you to have savings. For my own part, d’ye see, I take no concern about the management of my household; but I presume the savings of a musketeer must be small.”
“No doubt, relative to yourself, Porthos, who are a millionaire; but you shall judge. I had laid by twenty-five thousand livres.”
“That’s pretty well,” said Porthos, with an affable air.
“And,” continued d’Artagnan, “on the twenty-eighth of last month I added to it two hundred thousand livres more.”
Porthos opened his large eyes, which eloquently demanded of the musketeer, Where the devil did you steal such a sum as that, my dear friend? “Two hundred thousand livres!” cried he, at length.
“Yes; which, with the twenty-five I had, and twenty thousand I have about me, complete the sum of two hundred and forty-five thousand livres.”
“But tell me, whence comes this fortune?”
“I will tell you all about it presently, dear friend; but as you have, in the first place, many things to tell me yourself, let us have my recital in its proper order.”
“Bravo!” said Porthos; “then we are both rich. But what can I have to relate to you?”
“You have to relate to me how Aramis came to be named—”
“Ah! bishop of Vannes.”
“That’s it,” said d’Artagnan, “bishop of Vannes. Dear Aramis! do you know how he succeeded so well?”
“Yes, yes; without reckoning that he does not mean to stop there.”
“What! do you mean he will not be contented with violet stockings, and that he wants a red hat?”
“Hush! that is promised him.”
“Bah! by the king?”
“By somebody more powerful than the king.”
“Ah! the devil! Porthos: what incredible things you tell me, my friend!”
“Why incredible? Is there not always somebody in France more powerful than the king?”
“Oh, yes; in the time of King Louis XIII it was Cardinal Richelieu; in the time of the regency it was Cardinal Mazarin. In the time of Louis XIV it is M—”
“Go on.”
“It is M. Fouquet.”
“Jove! you have hit it the first time.”
“So, then, I suppose it is M. Fouquet who has promised Aramis the red hat?”
Porthos assumed an air of reserve. “Dear friend,” said he, “God preserve me from meddling with the affairs of others, above all from revealing secrets it may be to their interest to keep. When you see Aramis, he will tell you all he thinks he ought to tell you.”
“You are right, Porthos; and you are quite a padlock for safety. But, to revert to yourself?”
“Yes,” said Porthos.
“You said just now you came hither to study topography?”
“I did so.”
“Tudieu! my friend, what fine things you will do!”
“How do you mean?”
“Why, these fortifications are admirable.”
“Is that your opinion?”
“Decidedly it is. In truth, to anything but a regular siege, Belle-Isle is absolutely impregnable.”
Porthos rubbed his hands. “That is my opinion,” said he.
“But who the devil has fortified this paltry little place in this manner?”
Porthos drew himself up proudly: “Did I not tell you who?”
“No.”
“Do you not suspect?”
“No; all I can say is that he is a man who has studied all the systems, and who appears to me to have stopped at the best.”
“Hush!” said Porthos; “consider my modesty, my dear d’Artagnan.”
“In truth,” replied the musketeer, “can it be you—who—oh!”
“Pray—my dear friend—”
“You who have imagined, traced, and combined between these bastions, these redans, these curtains, these half-moons; and are preparing that covered way?”
“I beg you—”
“You who have built that lunette with its retiring angles and its salient angles?”
“My friend—”
“You who have given that inclination to the openings of your embrasures, by means of which you so effectively protect the men who serve the guns?”
“Eh! mon Dieu! yes.”
“Oh! Porthos, Porthos! I must bow down before you—I must admire you! But you have always concealed from us this superb, this incomparable genius. I hope, my dear friend, you will show me all this in detail.”
“Nothing more easy. Here lies my original sketch, my plan.”
“Show it me.” Porthos led d’Artagnan towards the stone that served him for a table, and upon which the plan was spread. At the foot of the plan was written, in the formidable writing of Porthos, writing of which we have already had occasion to speak:—
“Instead of making use of the square or rectangle, as has been done to this time, you will suppose your place enclosed in a regular hexagon, this polygon having the advantage of offering more angles than the quadrilateral one. Every side of your hexagon, of which you will determine the length in proportion to the dimensions taken
