United States or Finland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They blushed and were silent. It must be remembered that this report of a private incident could only come to the narrator, Von Gleichen, from de Choiseul, with whom he professes to have been intimate. The King and the Marechal de Belle-Isle would not tell the story of their own discomfiture. It is not very likely that de Choiseul himself would blab.
In good truth, Porthos I cannot tell why you have not turned conjurer. So you understand that arriving at Roche-Bernard, I heard of the splendid fortifications going on at Belle-Isle. The account raised my curiosity, I embarked in a fishing boat, without dreaming that you were here: I came, and I saw a monstrous fine fellow lifting a stone Ajax could not have stirred.
"Monsieur," said he, at the expiration of a minute, "not only is Belle-Isle known to me, but, still further, Belle-Isle is mine." "That is well! that is well, sire, I ask but one thing more," replied D'Artagnan. "My discharge." "What! your discharge?" "Without doubt I am too proud to eat the bread of the king without earning it, or rather by gaining it badly. My discharge, sire!" "Oh, oh!"
"Not any, I assure you, my dear captain; for, in fact, I have done nothing, no more has Aramis," the worthy baron hastened to say. D'Artagnan darted a reproachful look at the prelate, which penetrated that hardened heart. "Dear Porthos!" cried the bishop of Vannes. "You see what is being done against you," said D'Artagnan; "interception of all boats coming to or going from Belle-Isle.
In fact, you will carry your money against all chances; and, whilst flying, you will only have obeyed the king; then, reaching the sea, when you like, you will embark for Belle-Isle, and from Belle-Isle you will shoot out wherever it may please you, like the eagle that leaps into space when it has been driven from its eyrie." A general assent followed Pelisson's words.
The canoe was long, light, drawing little water, thin of keel; in short, one of those that have always been so aptly built at Belle-Isle; a little high in its sides, solid upon the water, very manageable, furnished with planks which, in uncertain weather, formed a sort of deck over which the waves might glide, so as to protect the rowers.
"Besides," he added, "you saw me at Belle-Isle." "A greater reason for my believing you to be one of M. Fouquet's friends." "The fact is, I am acquainted with him," said Porthos, with a certain embarrassment of manner. "Ah, friend Porthos," said D'Artagnan, "how treacherously you have behaved towards me." "In what way?" exclaimed Porthos.
"You see Locmaria," replied the fisherman. "Well, but there?" "That is Bangor." "And further on?" "Sauzon, and then Le Palais." "Mordioux! It is a world. Ah! there are some soldiers." "There are seventeen hundred men in Belle-Isle, monsieur," replied the fisherman, proudly. "Do you know that the least garrison is of twenty companies of infantry?"
All this must have been prior to the death of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle in 1761; and probably de Broglie, who managed the regular old secret policy of Louis XV., knew nothing about this new clandestine adventure; at all events, the late Duc de Broglie says nothing about it in his book The King's Secret.
An old fisherman replied to M. Agnan, that the stones very certainly did not come from Piriac or the marshes. "Where do they come from, then?" asked the musketeer. "Monsieur, they come from Nantes and Paimboeuf." "Where are they going, then?" "Monsieur, to Belle-Isle."
Word Of The Day