echal, your father, who would not have done at all
what you have done, Monsieur."

"What, then, would he have done?"

"He would very quietly have let this cure be burned by the other cures,
and would have said to me, 'Grandchamp, see that my horses have oats, and
let no one steal them'; or, 'Grandchamp, take care that the rain does not
rust my sword or wet the priming of my pistols'; for Monsieur le Marechal
thought of everything, and never interfered in what did not concern him.
That was his great principle; and as he was, thank Heaven, alike good
soldier and good general, he was always as careful of his arms as a
recruit, and would not have stood up against thirty young gallants with a
dress rapier."

Cinq-Mars felt the force of the worthy servitor's epigrammatic scolding,
and feared that he had followed him beyond the wood of Chaumont; but he
would not ask, lest he should have to give explanations or to tell a
falsehood or to command silence, which would at once have been taking him
into confidence on the subject. As the only alternative, he spurred his
horse and rode ahead of his old domestic; but the latter had not yet had
his say, and instead of keeping behind his master, he rode up to his left
and continued the conversation.

"Do you suppose, Monsieur, that I should allow you to go where you
please? No, Monsieur, I am too deeply impressed with the respect I owe to
Madame la Marquise, to give her an opportunity of saying to me:
'Grandchamp, my son has been killed with a shot or with a sword; why were
you not before him?' Or, 'He has received a stab from the stiletto of an
Italian, because he went at night beneath the window of a great princess;
why did you not seize the assassin?' This would be very disagreeable to
me, Monsieur, for I never have been reproached with anything of the kind.
Once Monsieur le Marechal lent me to his nephew, Monsieur le Comte, to
make a campaign in the Netherlands, because I know Spanish. I fulfilled
the duty with honor, as I always do. When Monsieur le Comte received a
bullet in his heart, I myself brought back his horses, his mules, his
tent, and all his equipment, without so much as a pocket-handkerchief
being missed; and I can assure you that the horses were as well dressed
and harnessed when we reentered Chaumont as if Monsieur le Comte had been
about to go a-hunting. And, accordingly, I received nothing but
compliments and agreeable things from the whole family, just in the way