He went to find Aramis.

“You, my dear Chevalier d’Herblay,” he said, “are the Fronde incarnate.  Mistrust Athos, therefore, who will not prosecute the affairs of any one, even his own.  Mistrust Porthos, especially, who, to please the count whom he regards as God on earth, will assist him in contriving Mazarin’s escape, if Mazarin has the wit to weep or play the chivalric.”

Aramis smiled; his smile was at once cunning and resolute.

“Fear nothing,” he said; “I have my conditions to impose.  My private ambition tends only to the profit of him who has justice on his side.”

“Good!” thought D’Artagnan:  “in this direction I am satisfied.”  He pressed Aramis’s hand and went in search of Porthos.

“Friend,” he said, “you have worked so hard with me toward building up our fortune, that, at the moment when we are about to reap the fruits of our labours, it would be a ridiculous piece of silliness in you to allow yourself to be controlled by Aramis, whose cunning you know —­ a cunning which, we may say between ourselves, is not always without egotism; or by Athos, a noble and disinterested man, but blase, who, desiring nothing further for himself, doesn’t sympathize with the desires of others.  What should you say if either of these two friends proposed to you to let Mazarin go?”

“Why, I should say that we had too much trouble in taking him to let him off so easily.”

“Bravo, Porthos! and you would be right, my friend; for in losing him you would lose your barony, which you have in your grasp, to say nothing of the fact that, were he once out of this, Mazarin would have you hanged.”

“Do you think so?”

“I am sure of it.”

“Then I would kill him rather than let him go.”

“And you would act rightly.  There is no question, you understand, provided we secure our own interests, of securing those of the Frondeurs; who, besides, don’t understand political matters as we old soldiers do.”

“Never fear, dear friend,” said Porthos.  “I shall see you through the window as you mount your horse; I shall follow you with my eyes as long as you are in sight; then I shall place myself at the cardinal’s door —­ a door with glass windows.  I shall see everything, and at the least suspicious sign I shall begin to exterminate.”

“Bravo!” thought D’Artagnan; “on this side I think the cardinal will be well guarded.”  He pressed the hand of the lord of Pierrefonds and went in search of Athos.

“My dear Athos,” he said, “I am going away.  I have only one thing to say to you.  You know Anne of Austria; the captivity of Mazarin alone guarantees my life; if you let him go I am a dead man.”

“I needed nothing less than that consideration, my dear D’Artagnan, to persuade myself to adopt the role of jailer.  I give you my word that you will find the cardinal where you leave him.”

“This reassures me more than all the royal signatures,” thought D’Artagnan.  “Now that I have the word of Athos I can set out.”