‘Kill! kill!’ when not one musketeer was hurt. Mordioux! you will never see anything like that.”

“You are very hard upon the king, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan and yet you scarcely know him.”

“I! Listen, Raoul. Day by day, hour by hour, — take note of my words, — I will predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret; very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if he does not shed a tear.”

“And then?”

“Why, then he will get M. Fouquet to allow him a pension, and will go and compose verses at Fontainebleau, upon some Mancini or other, whose eyes the queen will scratch out. She is a Spaniard, you see, —