One day when the gentlemen aforesaid were at a banquet where they made right good cheer, they began to speak of their several fortunes and of the prisons in which they had lain during the wars.  Valnebon, however, who found it a hard task to conceal the great good fortune he had met with, began saying to his comrades—­

“I know not what prisons have been yours, but for my own part, for love of one wherein I once lay, I shall all my life long give praise and honour to the rest.  I think that no pleasure on earth comes near that of being kept a prisoner.”

Astillon, who had been the first captive, had a suspicion of the prison that he meant, and replied—­

“What gaoler, Valnebon, man or woman, treated you so well that you became so fond of your prison?”

“Whoever the gaoler may have been,” said Valnebon, “my prisonment was so pleasant that I would willingly have had it last longer.  Never was I better treated or more content.”

Durassier, who was a man of few words, clearly perceived that they were discussing the prison in which he had shared like the rest; so he said to Valnebon—­

“On what meats were you fed in the prison that you praise so highly?”

“What meats?” said Valnebon.  “The King himself has none better or more nourishing.”

“But I should also like to know,” said Durassier, “whether your keeper made you earn your bread properly?”

Valnebon, suspecting that he had been understood, could not hold from swearing.

“God’s grace!” said he.  “Had I indeed comrades where I believed myself alone?”

Perceiving this dispute, wherein he had part like the rest, Astillon laughed and said—­

“We all serve one master, and have been comrades and friends from boyhood; if, then, we are comrades in the same good fortune, we can but laugh at it.  But, to see whether what I imagine be true, pray let me question you, and do you confess the truth to me; for if that which I fancy has befallen us, it is as amusing an adventure as could be found in any book.”

They all swore to tell the truth if the matter were such as they could not deny.

Then said he to them—­

“I will tell you my own fortune, and you will tell me, ay or nay, if yours has been the same.”

To this they all agreed, whereupon he said—­

“I asked leave of the King to go on a journey.”

“So,” they replied, “did we.”

“When I was two leagues from the Court, I left all my following and went and yielded myself up prisoner.”

“We,” they replied, “did the same.”

“I remained,” said Astillon, “for seven or eight days, and lay in a closet where I was fed on nothing but restoratives and the choicest viands that I ever ate.  At the end of a week, those who held me captive suffered me to depart much weaker in body than I had been on my arrival.”

They all swore that the like had happened to them.