little sniveller, the king, makes
winners give him his revenge. What a reign! my poor Raoul, what a reign!
When we think that, in my time, the musketeers were besieged in their
houses like Hector and Priam in the city of Troy, and the women wept,
and then the walls laughed, and then five hundred beggarly fellows
clapped their hands, and cried, 'Kill! kill!' when not one musketeer was
hurt. Mordioux! you will never see anything like that."

"You are very hard upon the king, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan; and yet
you scarcely know him."

"I! Listen, Raoul. Day by day, hour by hour,--take note of my words,--I
will predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret;
very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if he
does not shed a tear."

"And then?"

"Why then he will get M. Fouquet to allow him a pension, and will go and
compose verses at Fontainebleau, upon some Mancini or other, whose eyes
the queen will scratch out. She is a Spaniard, you see,--this queen of
ours, and she has, for mother-in-law, Madame Anne of Austria. I know
something of the Spaniards of the house of Austria."

"And next?"

"Well, after having torn off the silver lace from the uniforms of his
Swiss, because lace is too expensive, he will dismount the musketeers,
because the oats and hay of a horse cost five sols a day."

"Oh! do not say that."

"Of what consequence is it to me? I am no longer a musketeer, am I? Let
them be on horseback, let them be on foot, let them carry a larding-pin,
a spit, a sword, or nothing--what is it to me?"

"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan, I beseech you speak no more ill of the
king. I am almost in his service, and my father would be very angry
with me for having heard, even from your mouth, words injurious to his
majesty."

"Your father, eh? He is a knight in every bad cause. Pardieu! yes,
your father is a brave man, a Caesar, it is true--but a man without
perception."

"Now, my dear chevalier," exclaimed Raoul, laughing, "are you going to
speak ill of my father, of him you call the great Athos. Truly you are
in a bad vein to-day; riches render you as sour as poverty renders other
people."

"Pardieu! you are right. I am a rascal and in my dotage; I am an unhappy
wretch grown old; a tent-cord untwisted, a pierced cuirass, a boot
without a sole, a spur without a rowel;--but do me the pleasure to add
one thing."

"What is that, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan?"

"Simply say: 'Maza