Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas Chapter 51 Page 24

his right; each guarded a door and served as a rampart to him on either side. Before him, on the front seat, lay two pairs of pistols — one in front of Porthos and the other of D’Artagnan.

About a hundred paces from the Palais Royal a patrol stopped the carriage.

“Who goes?” asked the captain.

“Mazarin!” replied D’Artagnan, bursting into a laugh. The cardinal’s hair stood on end. But the joke appeared an excellent one to the citizens, who, seeing the conveyance without escort and unarmed, would never have believed in the possibility of so great an imprudence.

“A good journey to ye,” they cried, allowing it to pass.

“Hem!”