“At least,” D’Artagnan said to himself, as he took the road to Villars-Cotterets, “at least I shall not be alone in my undertaking. That devil, Porthos, is a man of prodigious strength; still, if Athos joins us, well, we shall be three of us to laugh at Aramis, that little coxcomb with his too good luck.”

At Villars-Cotterets he wrote to the cardinal:

“My Lord, — I have already one man to offer to your eminence, and he is well worth twenty men.

I am just setting out for Blois. The Comte de la Fere inhabits the Castle of Bragelonne, in the environs of that city.”