D'Artagnan reflected to such good purpose during the nightthat his plan was settled by morning. "This is it," said he,sitting up in bed, supporting his elbow on his knee, and hischin in his hand; - "this is it. I shall seek out fortysteady, firm men, recruited among people a littlecompromised, but having habits of discipline. I shallpromise them five hundred livres for a month if they return,nothing if they do not return, or half for their kindred. Asto food and lodging, that concerns the English, who havecattle in their pastures, bacon in their bacon-racks, fowlsin their poultry-yards, and corn in their barns. I willpresent myself to General Monk with my little body oftroops. He will receive me. I shall win his confidence, andtake advantage of it, as soon as possible."

But without going farther, D'Artagnan shook his head andinterrupted himself. "No," said he; "I should not dare torelate this to Athos; the way is therefore not honorable. Imust use violence," continued he, - "very certainly I must,but without compromising my loyalty. With forty men I willtraverse the country as a partisan. But if I fall in with,not forty thousand English, as Planchet said, but purely andsimply with four hundred, I shall be beaten. Supposing thatamong my forty warriors there should be found at least tenstupid ones - ten who will allow themselves to be killedone after the other, from mere folly? No; it is, in fact,impossible to find forty men to be depended upon - they donot exist. I must learn how to be contented with thirty.With ten men less I should have the right of avoiding anyarmed encounter, on account of the small number of mypeople; and if the encounter should take place, my chance isbetter with thirty men than forty. Besides, I should savefive thousand francs; that is to say, the eighth of mycapital; that is worth the trial. This being so, I shouldhave thirty men. I shall divide them into three bands, - wewill spread ourselves about over the country, with aninjunction to reunite at a given moment; in this fashion,ten by ten, we should excite no suspicion - we should passunperceived. Yes, yes, thirty - that is a magic number.There are three tens - three, that divine number! And then,truly, a company of thirty men, when all together, will lookrather imposing. Ah! stupid wretch that I am!" continuedD'Artagnan, "I want thirty horses. That is ruinous. Wherethe devil was my head when I forgot the horses? We cannot,however, think of striking such a blow without horses. Well,so be it, that sacrifice must be made; we can get the horsesin the country - they are not bad, besides. But I forgot - peste! Three bands - that necessitates three leaders; thereis the difficulty. Of the three commanders I have alreadyone - that is myself; - yes, but the two others will ofthemselves cost almost as much money as all the rest of thetroop. No; positively I must have but one lieutenant. Inthat ease, then, I should reduce my troop to twenty men. Iknow very well that twenty men is but very little; but sincewith thirty I was determined not to seek to come to blows, Ishould do so more carefully still with twenty. Twenty - that is a round number; that, besides, reduces the number ofthe horses by ten, which is a consideration; and then, witha good lieutenant - Mordioux! what things patience andcalculation are! Was I not going to embark with forty men,and I have now reduced them to twenty for an equal success?Ten thousand livres saved at one stroke, and more safety;that is well! Now, then, let us see; we have nothing to dobut to find this lieutenant - let him be found, then; andafter - That is not so easy; he must be brave and good, asecond myself. Yes, but a lieutenant must have my secret,and as that secret is worth a million, and I shall only paymy man a thousand livres, fifteen hundred at the most, myman will sell the secret to Monk. Mordioux! no lieutenant.Besides, this man, were he as mute as a disciple ofPythagoras, - this man would be sure to have in the troopsome favourite soldier, whom he would make his sergeant, thesergeant would penetrate the secret of the lieutenant, incase the latter should be honest and unwilling to sell it.Then the sergeant, less honest and less ambitious, will giveup the whole for fifty thousand livres. Come, come! that isimpossible. The lieutenant is impossible. But then I musthave no fractions; I cannot divide my troop into two, andact upon two points, at once, without another self, who - But what is the use of acting upon two points, as we haveonly one man to take? What can be the good of weakening acorps by placing the right here, and the left there? Asingle corps - Mordioux! a single one, and that commandedby D'Artagnan. Very well. But twenty men marching in oneband are suspected by everybody; twenty horsemen must not beseen marching together, or a company will be detachedagainst them and the password will be required; the whichcompany, upon seeing them embarrassed to give it, wouldshoot M. d'Artagnan and his men like so many rabbits. Ireduce myself then to ten men; in this fashion I shall actsimply and with unity; I shall be forced to be prudent,which is half the success in an affair of the kind I amundertaking; a greater number might, perhaps, have drawn meinto some folly. Ten horses are not many, either to buy ortake. A capital idea; what tranquillity it infuses into mymind! no more suspicions - no passwords - no more dangers!Ten men, they are valets or clerks. Ten men, leading tenhorses laden with merchandise of whatever kind, aretolerated, well received everywhere. Ten men travel onaccount of the house of Planchet & Co., of France - nothingcan be said against that. These ten men, clothed likemanufacturers, have a good cutlass or a good musket at theirsaddle-bow, and a good pistol in the holster. They neverallow themselves to be uneasy, because they have no evildesigns. They are, perhaps, in truth, a little disposed tobe smugglers, but what harm is in that? Smuggling is not,like polygamy, a hanging offense. The worst that can happento us is the confiscation of our merchandise. Ourmerchandise confiscated - fine affair that! Come, come! itis a superb plan. Ten men only - ten men, whom I willengage for my service; ten men who shall be as resolute asforty, who would cost me four times as much, and to whom,for greater security, I will never open my mouth as to mydesigns, and to whom I shall only say, `My friends, there isa blow to be struck.' Things being after this fashion, Satanwill be very malicious if he plays me one of his tricks.Fifteen thousand livres saved - that's superb - out oftwenty!"

Thus fortified by his laborious calculations, D'Artagnanstopped at this plan, and determined to change nothing init. He had already on a list furnished by his inexhaustiblememory, ten men illustrious amongst the seekers ofadventures, ill-treated by fortune, and not on good termswith justice. Upon this D'Artagnan rose, and instantly setoff on the search, telling Planchet not to expect him tobreakfast, and perhaps not to dinner. A day and a half spentin rummaging amongst certain dens of Paris sufficed for hisrecruiting; and, without allowing his adventurers tocommunicate with each other, he had picked up and gottogether, in less than thirty hours, a charming collectionof ill-looking faces, speaking a French less pure than theEnglish they were about to attempt. These men were, for themost part, guards, whose merit D'Artagnan had had anopportunity of appreciating in various encounters, whomdrunkenness, unlucky sword-thrusts, unexpected winnings atplay, or the economical reforms of Mazarin, had forced toseek shade and solitude, those two great consolers ofirritated and chafing spirits. They bore upon theircountenances and in their vestments the traces of theheartaches they had undergone. Some had their visagesscarred, - all had their clothes in rags. D'Artagnancomforted the most needy of these brotherly miseries by aprudent distribution of the crowns of the society; then,having taken care that these crowns should be employed inthe physical improvement of the troop, he appointed atrysting place in the north of France, between Berghes andSaint Omer. Six days were allowed as the utmost term, andD'Artagnan was sufficiently acquainted with the good-will,the good-humor, and the relative probity of theseillustrious recruits, to be certain that not one of themwould fail in his appointment. These orders given, thisrendezvous fixed, he went to bid farewell to Planchet, whoasked news of his army. D'Artagnan did not think proper toinform him of the reduction he had made in his personnel. Hefeared that the confidence of his associate would be abatedby such an avowal. Planchet was delighted to learn that thearmy was levied, and that he (Planchet) found himself a kindof half king, who from his throne-counter kept in pay a bodyof troops destined to make war against perfidious Albion,that enemy of all true French hearts. Planchet paid down indouble louis, twenty thousand livres to D'Artagnan, on thepart of himself (Planchet), and twenty thousand livres,still in double louis, in account with D'Artagnan.D'Artagnan placed each of the twenty thousand francs in abag, and weighing a hag in each hand, - "This money is veryembarrassing, my dear Planchet," said he. "Do you know thisweighs thirty pounds?"

"Bah! your horse will carry that like a feather."

D'Artagnan shook his head. "Don't tell me such things,Planchet: a horse overloaded with thirty pounds, in additionto the rider and his portmanteau, cannot cross a river soeasily - cannot leap over a wall or ditch so lightly; andthe horse failing, the horseman fails. It is true that you,Planchet, who have served in the infantry, may not be awareof all that."

"Then what is to be done, monsieur?" said Planchet, greatlyembarrassed.

"Listen to me," said D'Artagnan. "I will pay my army on itsreturn home. Keep my half of twenty thousand livres, whichyou can use during that time."

"And my half?" said Planchet.

"I shall take that with me."

"Your confidence does me honor," said Planchet: "butsupposing you should not return?"

"That is possible, though not very probable. Then, Planchet,in case I should not return - give me a pen! I will make mywill." D'Artagnan took a pen and some paper, and wrote upona plain sheet, - "I, D'Artagnan, possess twenty thousandlivres, laid up cent by cent during thirty years that I havebeen in the service of his majesty the king of France. Ileave five thousand to Athos, five thousand to Porthos andfive thousand to Aramis, that they may give the said sums inmy name and their own to my young friend Raoul, Vicomte deBragelonne. I give the remaining five thousand to Planchet,that he may distribute the fifteen thousand with less regretamong my friends. With which purpose I sign these presents.- D'Artagnan.

Planchet appeared very curious to know what D'Artagnan hadwritten.

"Here," said the musketeer, "read it"

On reading the last lines the tears came into Planchet'seyes. "You think, then, that I would not have given themoney without that? Then I will have none of your fivethousand francs."

D'Artagnan smiled. "Accept it, accept it, Planchet; and inthat way you will only lose fifteen thousand francs insteadof twenty thousand, and you will not be tempted to disregardthe signature of your master and friend, by losing nothingat all."

How well that dear Monsieur d'Artagnan knew the hearts ofmen and grocers! They who have pronounced Don Quixote madbecause he rode out to the conquest of an empire with nobodybut Sancho, his squire, and they who have pronounced Sanchomad because he accompanied his master in his attempt toconquer the said empire, - they certainly will have nohesitation in extending the same judgment to D'Artagnan andPlanchet. And yet the first passed for one of the mostsubtle spirits among the astute spirits of the court ofFrance. As to the second, he had acquired by good right thereputation of having one of the longest heads among thegrocers of the Rue des Lombards; consequently of Paris, andconsequently of France. Now, to consider these two men fromthe point of view from which you would consider other men,and the means by the aid of which they contemplated torestore a monarch to his throne, compared with other means,the shallowest brains of the country where brains are mostshallow must have revolted against the presumptuous madnessof the lieutenant and the stupidity of his associate.Fortunately, D'Artagnan was not a man to listen to the idletalk of those around him, or to the comments that were madeon himself. He had adopted the motto, "Act well, and letpeople talk." Planchet on his part, had adopted this, "Actand say nothing." It resulted from this, that, according tothe custom of all superior geniuses, these two men flatteredthemselves intra pectus, with being in the right against allwho found fault with them.

As a beginning, D'Artagnan set out in the finest of possibleweather, without a cloud in the heavens - without a cloudon his mind, joyous and strong, calm and decided, great inhis resolution, and consequently carrying with him a tenfolddose of that potent fluid which the shocks of mind cause tospring from the nerves, and which procure for the humanmachine a force and an influence of which future ages willrender, according to all probability, a more arithmeticalaccount than we can possibly do at present. He was again, asin times past, on that same road of adventures which had ledhim to Boulogne, and which he was now traveling for thefourth time. It appeared to him that he could almostrecognize the trace of his own steps upon the road, and thatof his first upon the doors of the hostelries; - hismemory, always active and present, brought back that youthwhich neither thirty years later his great heart nor hiswrist of steel would have belied. What a rich nature wasthat of this man! He had all the passions, all the defects,all the weaknesses, and the spirit of contradiction familiarto his understanding changed all these imperfections intocorresponding qualities. D'Artagnan, thanks to his everactive imagination, was afraid of a shadow; and ashamed ofbeing afraid, he marched straight up to that shadow, andthen became extravagant in his bravery if the danger provedto be real. Thus everything in him was emotion, andtherefore enjoyment. He loved the society of others, butnever became tired of his own; and more than once, if hecould have been heard when he was alone, he might have beenseen laughing at the jokes he related to himself or thetricks his imagination created just five minutes beforeennui might have been looked for. D'Artagnan was not perhapsso gay this time as he would have been with the prospect offinding some good friends at Calais, instead of joining theten scamps there; melancholy, however, did not visit himmore than once a day, and it was about five visits that hereceived from that somber deity before he got sight of thesea at Boulogne, and then these visits were indeed butshort. But when once D'Artagnan found himself near the fieldof action, all other feelings but that of confidencedisappeared never to return. From Boulogne he followed thecoast to Calais. Calais was the place of general rendezvous,and at Calais he had named to each of his recruits thehostelry of "Le Grand Monarque," where living was notextravagant, where sailors messed, and where men of thesword, with sheath of leather, be it understood, foundlodging, table, food, and all the comforts of life, forthirty sous per diem. D'Artagnan proposed to himself to takethem by surprise in flagrante delicto of wandering life, andto judge by the first appearance if he could count on themas trusty companions.

He arrived at Calais at half past four in the afternoon.