k wind had prevailed for three days; but the corvette was known to
be a good sailer and solid in its timbers; it had no need to fear a gale
of wind, and it ought, according to the calculation of D'Artagnan, to
have either returned to Brest, or come back to the mouth of the Loire.
Such was the news, ambiguous, it is true, but in some degree reassuring
to him personally, which D'Artagnan brought to Louis XIV., when the
king, followed by all the court, returned to Paris.

Louis, satisfied with his success--Louis, more mild and affable as he
felt himself more powerful--had not ceased for an instant to ride beside
the carriage door of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. Everybody was anxious
to amuse the two queens, so as to make them forget this abandonment by
son and husband. Everything breathed the future, the past was nothing to
anybody. Only that past was like a painful bleeding wound to the hearts
of certain tender and devoted spirits. Scarcely was the king reinstalled
in Paris, when he received a touching proof of this. Louis XIV. had
just risen and taken his first repast when his captain of the musketeers
presented himself before him. D'Artagnan was pale and looked unhappy.
The king, at the first glance, perceived the change in a countenance
generally so unconcerned. "What is the matter, D'Artagnan?" said he.

"Sire, a great misfortune has happened to me."

"Good heavens! what is that?"

"Sire, I have lost one of my friends, M. du Vallon, in the affair of
Belle-Isle."

And, while speaking these words, D'Artagnan fixed his falcon eye upon
Louis XIV., to catch the first feeling that would show itself.

"I knew it," replied the king, quietly.

"You knew it, and did not tell me!" cried the musketeer.

"To what good? Your grief, my friend, was so well worthy of respect. It
was my duty to treat it gently. To have informed you of this misfortune,
which I knew would pain you so greatly, D'Artagnan, would have been, in
your eyes, to have triumphed over you. Yes, I knew that M. du Vallon had
buried himself beneath the rocks of Locmaria; I knew that M. d'Herblay
had taken one of my vessels with its crew, and had compelled it to
convey him to Bayonne. But I was willing you should learn these matters
in a direct manner, in order that you might be convinced my friends are
with me respected and sacred; that always in me the man will sacrifice
himself to subjects, whilst the king is so often found to sacrifice men
to majesty and po