returned Mazarin, smiling, "if
you have taken any particular notice of our lieutenant of musketeers?"

"Monsieur d'Artagnan? I have had no occasion to notice him particularly;
he's an old acquaintance. He's a Gascon. De Treville knows him and
esteems him very highly, and De Treville, as you know, is one of the
queen's greatest friends. As a soldier the man ranks well; he did his
whole duty and even more, at the siege of Rochelle--as at Suze and
Perpignan."

"But you know, Guitant, we poor ministers often want men with other
qualities besides courage; we want men of talent. Pray, was not Monsieur
d'Artagnan, in the time of the cardinal, mixed up in some intrigue from
which he came out, according to report, quite cleverly?"

"My lord, as to the report you allude to"--Guitant perceived that the
cardinal wished to make him speak out--"I know nothing but what the
public knows. I never meddle in intrigues, and if I occasionally become
a confidant of the intrigues of others I am sure your eminence will
approve of my keeping them secret."

Mazarin shook his head.

"Ah!" he said; "some ministers are fortunate and find out all that they
wish to know."

"My lord," replied Guitant, "such ministers do not weigh men in the same
balance; they get their information on war from warriors; on intrigues,
from intriguers. Consult some politician of the period of which you
speak, and if you pay well for it you will certainly get to know all you
want."

"Eh, pardieu!" said Mazarin, with a grimace which he always made when
spoken to about money. "They will be paid, if there is no way of getting
out of it."

"Does my lord seriously wish me to name any one who was mixed up in the
cabals of that day?"

"By Bacchus!" rejoined Mazarin, impatiently, "it's about an hour since I
asked you for that very thing, wooden-head that you are."

"There is one man for whom I can answer, if he will speak out."

"That's my concern; I will make him speak."

"Ah, my lord, 'tis not easy to make people say what they don't wish to
let out."

"Pooh! with patience one must succeed. Well, this man. Who is he?"

"The Comte de Rochefort."

"The Comte de Rochefort!"

"Unfortunately he has disappeared these four or five years and I don't
know where he is."

"I know, Guitant," said Mazarin.

"Well, then, how is it that your eminence complained just now of want of
information?"

"You think," resumed Mazarin, "that Rochefort----"

"He was Cardinal Ri