LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE. 113 and he is an active and vigorous hunter. Whenever he fires at an animal brought to bay and held in check by the dogs, he takes every possible precaution, and yet he fires with a carbine^ and on this occasion he seems to have faced the boar with pistols only." Manicamp started. "A costly pair of pistols, excellent weapons to fight a duel with a man, and not with a wild boar. What absurdity!" "There are some things, sire, which are difficult of ex- planation." "You are quite right, and the event which we are now discussing is one of those things. Go on." During the recital, St. Aignan, who had probably made a fiign to Manicamp to be careful what he was about, found that the king's glance was constantly fixed upon himself, so that it was utterly impossible to communicate with Mani- camp in any way. As for D' Artagnan, the statue of Silence at Athens was far more noisy and far more expressive than he. Manicamp, therefore, was obliged to continue in the same way he had begun, and so contrived to get more and more entangled in his explanation. "Sire," he said, "this is probably how the affair hap- pened. Guiche was waiting to receive the boar as it rushed toward him." "On foot or on horseback?" inquired the king. "On horseback. He fired upon the brute and missed his aim, and then it dashed upon him." "And the horse was killed?" "Ah, your majesty knows that, then!" "I have been told that a horse has been found lying dead in the crossroads of the Bois-Rochin, and I presumed it was De Guiche's horse." "Perfectly true, sire; it was his." "Well, so much for the horse, and now for De Guiche?" "De Guiche, once down, was attacked and worried by the wild boar, and wounded in the hand and in the chest." "It is a horrible accident, but it must be admitted it was De Guiche's own fault. How could he possibly have gone to hunt such an animal merely armed with pistols; he must have forgotten the fable of Adonis?" Manicamp rubbed his ear in seeming perplexity. "Very true," he said; "it was very imprudent." "Can you explain it. Monsieur Manicamp?" "Sire, what is written, is written." "Ah! you are a fatalist."
