Artagnan, and which she had given
her son secretly. Next he went to the Quai de Feraille to have a new
blade put to his sword, and then returned toward the Louvre, inquiring
of the first Musketeer he met for the situation of the hotel of M. de
Treville, which proved to be in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier; that is to
say, in the immediate vicinity of the chamber hired by d'Artagnan--a
circumstance which appeared to furnish a happy augury for the success of
his journey.

After this, satisfied with the way in which he had conducted himself at
Meung, without remorse for the past, confident in the present, and full
of hope for the future, he retired to bed and slept the sleep of the
brave.

This sleep, provincial as it was, brought him to nine o'clock in the
morning; at which hour he rose, in order to repair to the residence
of M. de Treville, the third personage in the kingdom, in the paternal
estimation.

2 THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TREVILLE

M. de Troisville, as his family was still called in Gascony, or M.
de Treville, as he has ended by styling himself in Paris, had really
commenced life as d'Artagnan now did; that is to say, without a sou in
his pocket, but with a fund of audacity, shrewdness, and intelligence
which makes the poorest Gascon gentleman often derive more in his hope
from the paternal inheritance than the richest Perigordian or Berrichan
gentleman derives in reality from his. His insolent bravery, his still
more insolent success at a time when blows poured down like hail, had
borne him to the top of that difficult ladder called Court Favor, which
he had climbed four steps at a time.

He was the friend of the king, who honored highly, as everyone knows,
the memory of his father, Henry IV. The father of M. de Treville had
served him so faithfully in his wars against the league that in default
of money--a thing to which the Bearnais was accustomed all his life, and
who constantly paid his debts with that of which he never stood in need
of borrowing, that is to say, with ready wit--in default of money, we
repeat, he authorized him, after the reduction of Paris, to assume for
his arms a golden lion passant upon gules, with the motto FIDELIS ET
FORTIS. This was a great matter in the way of honor, but very little in
the way of wealth; so that when the illustrious companion of the great
Henry died, the only inheritance he was able to leave his son was his
sword and his motto. Thanks to this double gift and