of
charges d'affaires? You want nothing monsieur, but the steel cap on your
head, and a Bible at your girdle."

"Monsieur," said Athos, dryly, "I have never had, as you have, the
advantage of treating with Cromwell; and I have only seen his charges
d'affaires sword in hand, I am therefore ignorant of how he treated with
prime ministers. As for the king of England, Charles II., I know that
when he writes to his majesty King Louis XIV., he does not write to his
eminence the Cardinal Mazarin. I see no diplomacy in that distinction."

"Ah!" cried Mazarin, raising his attenuated hand and striking his head,
"I remember now!" Athos looked at him in astonishment. "Yes, that is
it!" said the cardinal, continuing to look at his interlocutor; "yes,
that is certainly it. I know you now, monsieur. Ah! diavolo! I am no
longer astonished."

"In fact, I was astonished that, with your eminence's excellent memory,"
replied Athos, smiling, "you had not recognized me before."

"Always refractory and grumbling--monsieur--monsieur--What do they call
you? Stop--a name of a river--Potamos; no--the name of an island--Naxos;
no, per Giove!--the name of a mountain--Athos! now I have it. Delighted
to see you again, and to be no longer at Rueil, where you and your
damned companions made me pay ransom. Fronde! still Fronde! accursed
Fronde! Oh, what grudges! Why, monsieur, have your antipathies survived
mine? If any one had cause to complain, I think it could not be you, who
got out of the affair not only in a sound skin, but with the cordon of
the Holy Ghost around your neck."

"My lord cardinal," replied Athos, "permit me not to enter into
considerations of that kind. I have a mission to fulfill. Will you
facilitate the means of my fulfilling that mission, or will you not?"

"I am astonished," said Mazarin,--quite delighted at having
recovered his memory, and bristling with malice--"I am astonished,
Monsieur--Athos--that a Frondeur like you should have accepted a mission
for the Mazarin, as used to be said in the good old times----" And
Mazarin began to laugh, in spite of a painful cough, which cut short his
sentences, converting them into sobs.

"I have only accepted the mission near the king of France, monsieur le
cardinal," retorted the comte, though with less asperity, for he thought
he had sufficiently the advantage to show himself moderate.

"And yet, Monsieur le Frondeur," said Mazarin gayly, "the affair which
you have taken in ch