416 tOUISE DE LA VALLIERE. wines, appeared successively Tipon the table, which was served at the king's expense, and of which expense M. Col- bert would have found no difficulty in saving two ^.hirds, without any one in the Bastile being tho worse for it. Baisemeaux was the only one who eat and drank resolutely. Aramis allowed nothing to pass by him, but merely touched everything he took; Athos, after the soup and three hors d'muvres, eat nothing more. The style of conversation was such as could hardly be otherwise between three men so opposite in temper and ideas. Aramis was incessantly ask- ing himself by what extraordinary chance Athos was at Baisemeaux's when D'Artagnan was no longer there, and why D'Artagnan did not remain when Athos was there. Athos sounded all the depths of the mind of Aramis, who lived in the midst of subterfuge, evasion, and intrigue; he studied his man well and thoroughly, and felt convinced that he was engaged upon some important project. And then he, too, began to think of his own personal affair, and to lose himself in conjectures as to D'Artagnan's reason for having left the Bastile so abruptly, and for leaving behind him a prisoner so badly introduced and so badly looked after by the prison authorities. But we shall not pause to examine into the thoughts and feelings of these personages, but will leave them to themselves, surrounded by the re- mains of poultry, game, and fish, which Baisemeaux's gen- erous knife and fork had so mutilated. We are going to follow D'Artagnan instead, who, getting into the carriage which had brought him, said to the coachman: "Keturn to the palace, and as fast as you can possibly make the horses go." CHAPTER LXIV. WHAT TOOK PLACE AT THE LOUVRE DURING THE SUPPER AT THE BASTILE. M. DE St. Aignan" had executed the commission with which the king had entrusted him for La Valliere, as we have already seen in one of the preceding chapters, but, whatever his eloquence might have been, he did not succeed in persuading the young girl that she had in the king a protector powerful enough for her under any combination of circumstances, and that she had no need of any one else in the world when the king was on her side. In point of
