wo most
respectful bows.

"Ah! what a lucky chance to see you here, Monsieur d'Artagnan!" cried
the falconer.

"It is rather I who should say that, messieurs," replied the captain,
"for nowadays, the king makes more frequent use of his musketeers than
of his falcons."

"Ah! it is not as it was in the good old times," sighed the falconer.
"Do you remember, Monsieur d'Artagnan, when the late king flew the pie
in the vineyards beyond Beaugence? Ah! _dame!_ you were not the captain
of the musketeers at that time, Monsieur d'Artagnan." [7]

"And you were nothing but under-corporal of the tiercelets," replied
D'Artagnan, laughing. "Never mind that, it was a good time, seeing
that it is always a good time when we are young. Good day, monsieur the
keeper of the harriers."

"You do me honor, monsieur le comte," said the latter. D'Artagnan made
no reply. The title of comte had hardly struck him; D'Artagnan had been
a comte four years.

"Are you not very much fatigued with the long journey you have taken,
monsieur le capitaine?" continued the falconer. "It must be full two
hundred leagues from hence to Pignerol."

"Two hundred and sixty to go, and as many to return," said D'Artagnan,
quietly.

"And," said the falconer, "is _he_ well?"

"Who?" asked D'Artagnan.

"Why, poor M. Fouquet," continued the falconer, in a low voice. The
keeper of the harriers had prudently withdrawn.

"No," replied D'Artagnan, "the poor man frets terribly; he cannot
comprehend how imprisonment can be a favor; he says that parliament
absolved him by banishing him, and banishment is, or should be, liberty.
He cannot imagine that they had sworn his death, and that to save his
life from the claws of parliament was to be under too much obligation to
Heaven."

"Ah! yes; the poor man had a close chance of the scaffold," replied the
falconer; "it is said that M. Colbert had given orders to the governor
of the Bastile, and that the execution was ordered."

"Enough!" said D'Artagnan, pensively, and with a view of cutting short
the conversation.

"Yes," said the keeper of the harriers, drawing towards them, "M.
Fouquet is now at Pignerol; he has richly deserved it. He had the good
fortune to be conducted there by you; he robbed the king sufficiently."

D'Artagnan launched at the master of the dogs one of his crossest looks,
and said to him, "Monsieur, if any one told me you had eaten your dogs'
meat, not only would I refuse to believe it; but sti