“How am I to understand you, monseigneur?” said Athos.

“Why, I call upon you to bid you farewell.”

“Farewell!”

“Yes, in good truth. Have you no idea of what I am about to become?”

“Why, I suppose, what you have always been, monseigneur, — a valiant prince, and an excellent gentleman.”

“I am going to become an African prince, — a Bedouin gentleman. The king is sending me to make conquests among the Arabs.”

“What is this you tell me, monseigneur?”

“Strange, is it not?

I, the Parisian par essence, I who have reigned in the faubourgs, and have been called King of the Halles, —