t. The adieux were on
this side longer and more tender than they had been on the other--not
that M. d'Artagnan did not love his son, who was his only offspring, but
M. d'Artagnan was a man, and he would have considered it unworthy of a
man to give way to his feelings; whereas Mme. d'Artagnan was a woman,
and still more, a mother. She wept abundantly; and--let us speak it to
the praise of M. d'Artagnan the younger--notwithstanding the efforts he
made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer ought, nature prevailed,
and he shed many tears, of which he succeeded with great difficulty in
concealing the half.

The same day the young man set forward on his journey, furnished with
the three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen
crowns, the horse, and the letter for M. de Treville--the counsels being
thrown into the bargain.

With such a VADE MECUM d'Artagnan was morally and physically an exact
copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when
our duty of an historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his
portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for
armies; d'Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and every look as a
provocation--whence it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was
constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the
fist did not descend upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its
scabbard. It was not that the sight of the wretched pony did not excite
numerous smiles on the countenances of passers-by; but as against the
side of this pony rattled a sword of respectable length, and as
over this sword gleamed an eye rather ferocious than haughty, these
passers-by repressed their hilarity, or if hilarity prevailed over
prudence, they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like the masks
of the ancients. D'Artagnan, then, remained majestic and intact in his
susceptibility, till he came to this unlucky city of Meung.

But there, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly
Miller, without anyone--host, waiter, or hostler--coming to hold his
stirrup or take his horse, d'Artagnan spied, though an open window on
the ground floor, a gentleman, well-made and of good carriage, although
of rather a stern countenance, talking with two persons who appeared
to listen to him with respect. d'Artagnan fancied quite naturally,
according to his custom, that he must be the object of their
conversation, and listened. This t