s
that the king was about to set out for Paris with an escort of twenty
Musketeers, and that they formed part of the escort.

Their joy was great. The lackeys were sent on before with the baggage,
and they set out on the morning of the sixteenth.

The cardinal accompanied his Majesty from Surgeres to Mauzes; and
there the king and his minister took leave of each other with great
demonstrations of friendship.

The king, however, who sought distraction, while traveling as fast as
possible--for he was anxious to be in Paris by the twenty-third--stopped
from time to time to fly the magpie, a pastime for which the taste had
been formerly inspired in him by de Luynes, and for which he had always
preserved a great predilection. Out of the twenty Musketeers sixteen,
when this took place, rejoiced greatly at this relaxation; but the other
four cursed it heartily. D'Artagnan, in particular, had a perpetual
buzzing in his ears, which Porthos explained thus: "A very great lady
has told me that this means that somebody is talking of you somewhere."

At length the escort passed through Paris on the twenty-third, in the
night. The king thanked M. de Treville, and permitted him to distribute
furloughs for four days, on condition that the favored parties should
not appear in any public place, under penalty of the Bastille.

The first four furloughs granted, as may be imagined, were to our
four friends. Still further, Athos obtained of M. de Treville six days
instead of four, and introduced into these six days two more nights--for
they set out on the twenty-fourth at five o'clock in the evening, and as
a further kindness M. de Treville post-dated the leave to the morning of
the twenty-fifth.

"Good Lord!" said d'Artagnan, who, as we have often said, never stumbled
at anything. "It appears to me that we are making a great trouble of
a very simple thing. In two days, and by using up two or three horses
(that's nothing; I have plenty of money), I am at Bethune. I present
my letter from the queen to the superior, and I bring back the dear
treasure I go to seek--not into Lorraine, not into Belgium, but to
Paris, where she will be much better concealed, particularly while the
cardinal is at La Rochelle. Well, once returned from the country, half
by the protection of her cousin, half through what we have personally
done for her, we shall obtain from the queen what we desire. Remain,
then, where you are, and do not exhaust yourselves with