the sake of shining even
yet more brilliantly. Towards the end of his career, at the moment of
reaching the goal, like the patrician Fuscus, he had made a false step
upon a plank, and had fallen into the sea. But Porthos, good, harmless
Porthos! To see Porthos hungry, to see Mousqueton without gold lace,
imprisoned, perhaps; to see Pierrefonds, Bracieux, razed to the very
stones, dishonored even to the timber,--these were so many poignant
griefs for D'Artagnan, and every time that one of these griefs struck
him, he bounded like a horse at the sting of a gadfly beneath the vaults
of foliage where he has sought shady shelter from the burning sun. Never
was the man of spirit subjected to _ennui_, if his body was exposed to
fatigue; never did the man of healthy body fail to find life light, if
he had something to engage his mind. D'Artagnan, riding fast, thinking
as constantly, alighted from his horse in Pairs, fresh and tender in
his muscles as the athlete preparing for the gymnasium. The king did not
expect him so soon, and had just departed for the chase towards Meudon.
D'Artagnan, instead of riding after the king, as he would formerly have
done, took off his boots, had a bath, and waited till his majesty
should return dusty and tired. He occupied the interval of five hours
in taking, as people say, the air of the house, and in arming himself
against all ill chances. He learned that the king, during the last
fortnight, had been gloomy; that the queen-mother was ill and much
depressed; that Monsieur, the king's brother, was exhibiting a
devotional turn; that Madame had the vapors; and that M. de Guiche was
gone to one of his estates. He learned that M. Colbert was radiant; that
M. Fouquet consulted a fresh physician every day, who still did not cure
him, and that his principal complaint was one which physicians do not
usually cure, unless they are political physicians. The king, D'Artagnan
was told, behaved in the kindest manner to M. Fouquet, and did not allow
him to be ever out of his sight; but the surintendant, touched to the
heart, like one of those fine trees a worm has punctured, was declining
daily, in spite of the royal smile, that sun of court trees. D'Artagnan
learned that Mademoiselle de la Valliere had become indispensable to the
king; that the king, during his sporting excursions, if he did not take
her with him, wrote to her frequently, no longer verses, but, which
was much worse, prose, and that whole pages