“The eight men would doubtless have failed had they not been assisted by twenty soldiers of the regiment of Italians in the king’s service, who are in garrison in this town so that your friends were overpowered by numbers.”

“Arrested, were they?” inquired Athos; “is it known why?”

“No, sir, they were carried off instantly, and had not even time to tell me why; but as soon as they were gone I found this broken sword-blade, as I was helping to raise two dead men and five or six wounded ones.”

“’Tis still a consolation that they were not wounded,” said Aramis.

“Where were they taken?” asked Athos.

“Toward the town of Louvres,” was the reply.

The two friends having agreed to leave Blaisois and Grimaud at Compiegne with the horses, resolved to take post horses; and having snatched a hasty dinner they continued their journey to Louvres.  Here they found only one inn, in which was consumed a liqueur which preserves its reputation to our time and which is still made in that town.

“Let us alight here,” said Athos.  “D’Artagnan will not have let slip an opportunity of drinking a glass of this liqueur, and at the same time leaving some trace of himself.”

They went into the town and asked for two glasses of liqueur, at the counter —­ as their friends must have done before them.  The counter was covered with a plate of pewter; upon this plate was written with the point of a large pin:  “Rueil . . .  D . .”

“They went to Rueil,” cried Aramis.

“Let us go to Rueil,” said Athos.

“It is to throw ourselves into the wolf’s jaws,” said Aramis.

“Had I been as great a friend of Jonah as I am of D’Artagnan I should have followed him even into the inside of the whale itself; and you would have done the same, Aramis.”

“Certainly —­ but you make me out better than I am, dear count.  Had I been alone I should scarcely have gone to Rueil without great caution.  But where you go, I go.”

They then set off for Rueil.  Here the deputies of the parliament had just arrived, in order to enter upon those famous conferences which were to last three weeks, and produced eventually that shameful peace, at the conclusion of which the prince was arrested.  Rueil was crowded with advocates, presidents and councillors, who came from the Parisians, and, on the side of the court, with officers and guards; it was therefore easy, in the midst of this confusion, to remain as unobserved as any one might wish; besides, the conferences implied a truce, and to arrest two gentlemen, even Frondeurs, at this time, would have been an attack on the rights of the people.

The two friends mingled with the crowd and fancied that every one was occupied with the same thought that tormented them.  They expected to hear some mention made of D’Artagnan or of Porthos, but every one was engrossed by articles and reforms.  It was the advice of Athos to go straight to the minister.