his prayers and had omitted to take
a book with him, he made use of his time in gazing at Bazin.

Bazin wore his dress, it may be observed, with equal dignity and saintly
propriety. It was not difficult to understand that he had gained the
crown of his ambition and that the silver-mounted wand he brandished
was in his eyes as honorable a distinction as the marshal's baton
which Conde threw, or did not throw, into the enemy's line of battle at
Fribourg. His person had undergone a change, analogous to the change in
his dress; his figure had grown rotund and, as it were, canonical. The
striking points of his face were effaced; he had still a nose, but his
cheeks, fattened out, each took a portion of it unto themselves; his
chin had joined his throat; his eyes were swelled up with the puffiness
of his cheeks; his hair, cut straight in holy guise, covered his
forehead as far as his eyebrows.

The officiating priest was just finishing mass whilst D'Artagnan was
looking at Bazin; he pronounced the words of the holy Sacrament and
retired, giving the benediction, which was received by the kneeling
communicants, to the astonishment of D'Artagnan, who recognized in the
priest the coadjutor* himself, the famous Jean Francois Gondy, who
at that time, having a presentiment of the part he was to play, was
beginning to court popularity by almsgiving. It was to this end that he
performed from time to time some of those early masses which the common
people, generally, alone attended.

*A sacerdotal officer.

D'Artagnan knelt as well as the rest, received his share of the
benediction and made the sign of the cross; but when Bazin passed in his
turn, with his eyes raised to Heaven and walking, in all humility, the
very last, D'Artagnan pulled him by the hem of his robe.

Bazin looked down and started, as if he had seen a serpent.

"Monsieur d'Artagnan!" he cried; "Vade retro Satanas!"

"So, my dear Bazin!" said the officer, laughing, "this is the way you
receive an old friend."

"Sir," replied Bazin, "the true friends of a Christian are those who aid
him in working out his salvation, not those who hinder him in doing so."

"I don't understand you, Bazin; nor can I see how I can be a
stumbling-block in the way of your salvation," said D'Artagnan.

"You forget, sir, that you very nearly ruined forever that of my master;
and that it was owing to you that he was very nearly being damned
eternally for remaining a musketeer,