LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE. 45 there; for Fontainebleau is by no means an inconsiderable place. Sometimes we see young girls clothed in white carrying banners; at others, some of the town council, or rich citizens, with choristers and all the parish authorities; and then, too, we see some of the officers of the king's household." "I should not like that," said Porthos. "There is not much amusement in it, at all events," said D'Artagnan. "I assure you it encourages religious thoughts," replied Planchet. "Oh, I don't deny that." "But," continued Planchet, "we must all die one day or another, and I once met with a maxim somewhere which I have remembered, that the thought of death is a thought that will do us all good." "I am far from saying the contrary," said Porthos. "But," objected D'Artagnan, "the thought of green fields, flowers, rivers, blue horizons, extensive and bound- less plains, is no less likely to do us good." "If I had any, I should be far from rejecting them,'* said Planchet; "but possessing only this little cemetery, full of flowers, so moss-grown, shady, and quiet, I am con- tented with it, and I think of those who live in town, in the Rue des Lombards, for instance, and who have to listen to the rumbling of a couple of thousand vehicles every day, and to the trampling of a hundred and fifty thousand foot passengers." "But living," said Porthos; "living, remember that." "That is exactly the reason," said Planchet timidly,
- 'why I feel it does me good to see a few dead."
"Upon my word," said D'Artagnan, "that fellow Plan- chet was born to be a poet as well as a grocer." "Monsieur," said Planchet, "I am one of those good- humored sort of men whom Heaven created for the purpose of living a certain space of time, and of considering all things good which they meet with during their stay on earth." D'Artagnan sat down close to the window, and as there seemed to be something substantial in Planchet's philosophy, he mused over it. "Ah! ah!" exclaimed Porthos, "if I am not mistaken, we are going to have a representation now, for I think I heard something like chanting." "Yes," said D'Artagnan, "I hear singing, too."
