“A very great lady has told me that this means that somebody is talking of you somewhere.”

At length the escort passed through Paris on the twenty-third, in the night. The king thanked M. de Treville, and permitted him to distribute furloughs for four days, on condition that the favored parties should not appear in any public place, under penalty of the Bastille.

The first four furloughs granted, as may be imagined, were to our four friends. Still further, Athos obtained of M. de Treville six days instead of four, and introduced into these six days two more nights — for they set out on the twenty-fourth at five o’clock in the evening, and as a further kindness M. de Treville post-dated the leave to the morning of the twenty-fifth.