d Louis mournfully, as the clock struck
twelve. It was the very hour when poor La Valliere was almost dying from
anguish and bitter suffering. The king's attendants entered, it being
the hour of his retirement to his chamber; the queen, indeed, had
been waiting for more than an hour. Louis accordingly retreated to his
bedroom with a sigh; but, as he sighed, he congratulated himself on his
courage, and applauded himself for having been as firm in love as in
affairs of state.

Chapter XXVIII. The Ambassadors.

D'Artagnan had, with very few exceptions, learned almost all of the
particulars of what we have just been relating; for among his friends
he reckoned all the useful, serviceable people in the royal
household,--officious attendants who were proud of being recognized
by the captain of the musketeers, for the captain's influence was
very great; and then, in addition to any ambitious vies they may have
imagined he could promote, they were proud of being regarded as
worth being spoken to by a man as brave as D'Artagnan. In this manner
D'Artagnan learned every morning what he had not been able either to see
or to ascertain the night before, from the simple fact of his not being
ubiquitous; so that, with the information he had been able by his own
means to pick up during the day, and with what he had gathered from
others, he succeeded in making up a bundle of weapons, which he was in
the prudent habit of using only when occasion required. In this way,
D'Artagnan's two eyes rendered him the same service as the hundred eyes
of Argus. Political secrets, bedside revelations, hints or scraps of
conversation dropped by the courtiers on the threshold of the royal
ante-chamber, in this way D'Artagnan managed to ascertain, and to store
away everything in the vast and impenetrable mausoleum of his memory,
by the side of those royal secrets so dearly bought and faithfully
preserved. He therefore knew of the king's interview with Colbert,
and of the appointment made for the ambassadors in the morning, and,
consequently, that the question of the medals would be brought up for
debate; and, while he was arranging and constructing the conversation
upon a few chance words which had reached his ears, he returned to his
post in the royal apartments, so as to be there at the very moment the
king awoke. It happened that the king rose very early,--proving thereby
that he, too, on his side, had slept but indifferently. Towards seven
o'cloc