for chanting, my dear
Planchet; I have remarked that nations prefer singing a merry chant to
the plain chant. Remember the Fronde; what did they sing in those times?
Well those were good times."

"Not too good, not too good! I was near being hung in those times."

"Well, but you were not."

"No."

"And you laid the foundation of your fortune in the midst of all those
songs?"

"That is true."

"Then you have nothing to say against them."

"Well, I return, then, to the army and parliament."

"I say that I borrow twenty thousand livres of M. Planchet, and that
I put twenty thousand livres of my own to it, and with these forty
thousand livres I raise an army."

Planchet clasped his hands; he saw that D'Artagnan was in earnest, and,
in good truth, he believed his master had lost his senses.

"An army!--ah, monsieur," said he, with his most agreeable smile,
for fear of irritating the madman, and rendering him furious,--"an
army!--how many?"

"Of forty men," said D'Artagnan.

"Forty against forty thousand! that is not enough. I know very well that
you, M. d'Artagnan, alone, are equal to a thousand men, but where are
we to find thirty-nine men equal to you? Or, if we could find them, who
would furnish you with money to pay them?"

"Not bad, Planchet. Ah, the devil! you play the courtier."

"No, monsieur, I speak what I think, and that is exactly why I say that,
in the first pitched battle you fight with your forty men, I am very
much afraid----"

"Therefore I shall fight no pitched battles, my dear Planchet," said the
Gascon, laughing. "We have very fine examples in antiquity of skillful
retreats and marches, which consisted in avoiding the enemy instead of
attacking them. You should know that, Planchet, you who commanded
the Parisians the day on which they ought to have fought against the
musketeers, and who so well calculated marches and countermarches, that
you never left the Palais Royal."

Planchet could not help laughing. "It is plain," replied he, "that if
your forty men conceal themselves, and are not unskillful, they may hope
not to be beaten: but you propose obtaining some result, do you not?"

"No doubt. This, then, in my opinion, is the plan to be proceeded upon
in order quickly to replace his majesty Charles II. on his throne."

"Good!" said Planchet, increasing his attention; "let us see your plan.
But in the first place it seems to me we are forgetting something."

"What is that?"

"We