salts, which recalled him to life. Then M. de Treville,
unwilling that it should be thought that he had influenced the
wounded man, requested M. de la Tremouille to interrogate him
himself.

That happened which M. de Treville had foreseen. Placed between
life and death, as Bernajoux was, he had no idea for a moment of
concealing the truth; and he described to the two nobles the
affair exactly as it had passed.

This was all that M. de Treville wanted. He wished Bernajoux a
speedy convalescence, took leave of M. de la Tremouille, returned
to his hotel, and immediately sent word to the four friends that
he awaited their company at dinner.

M. de Treville entertained good company, wholly anticardinalist,
though. It may easily be understood, therefore, that the
conversation during the whole of dinner turned upon the two
checks that his Eminence's Guardsmen had received. Now, as
d'Artagnan had been the hero of these two fights, it was upon him
that all the felicitations fell, which Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
abandoned to him, not only as good comrades, but as men who had
so often had their turn that could very well afford him his.

Toward six o'clock M. de Treville announced that it was time to
go to the Louvre; but as the hour of audience granted by his
Majesty was past, instead of claiming the ENTREE by the back
stairs, he placed himself with the four young men in the
antechamber. The king had not yet returned from hunting. Our
young men had been waiting about half an hour, amid a crowd of